Honorary Chair
Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008
President
Daniel A. Bennett
Honorary President
Don Walsh, Ph.D.
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Honorary Chair Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008 |
President Daniel A. Bennett |
Honorary President Don Walsh, Ph.D. |
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PUBLICATIONS
By Club member Kenneth Kamler, MD
Review by Club member Lindley Kirksey Kenneth Kamler once said that just walking through the doors of The Explorers Club guaranteed him a remarkable story (or tall tale) from any member there. His stories alone could have justified the writing of this book, and many chapters begin with Kamler in a life-threatening situation, be it the Amazon jungle, deep underwater in the Galapagos Islands, or on the high slopes of Mt. Everest. Additional scope and depth come from the stories he has collected from close friends and others who have survived situations that stretch science into that dimension that is the core of the book—how our complex bodies behave when the extremes of existence are reached. The chapters in the book cover the jungle, high seas, desert, underwater, high altitude, and outer space, and end with a conclusion that discusses the will to survive. The will to survive is vividly elaborated in the desert chapter—this reviewer’s favorite. Kamler compares the body’s ability to regulate the "exquisitely sequenced chemical reactions" in the body to a "symphony orchestra with each member playing at a different tempo". Lost in the desert, Pablo Valencia should not have lived. Kamler gives the reader the stages of his body fighting the loss of water and also the stages of his responsibly managed recovery. We live our entire lives just a few degrees away from death, as the brain is fried when our body temperature reaches 110 degrees. Surviving the Extremes, in a gripping way, lays out the danger of going forward unprepared. It also gives testimony to the powerful systems that regulate our physical being. Kenneth Kamler is well known for his achievements in mountain climbing and is the author of Doctor on Everest, a book concerning his heroic efforts during the disaster on Everest in 1996. As both a doctor and a scientist with a literary approach to his writing, he has written a book to be referenced again and again.
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