But now, her name is been associated with accusations instead of accolades. Harila is under scrutiny for allegedly walking past a dying sherpa on her journey to set a new record. She denies letting the sherpa in her path perish without offering to help, but video footage told an entirely different story.

The peaks reach staggering heights—upwards of 26,000 feet, to be exact. On July 27, 2023, the pair of climbers reached the summit of the K2 in Pakistan. Summiting the Himalayan mountains was a challenging feat that required great strength and determination.

But Harila and her guide didn’t have long to celebrate before they were accused of a dastardly act. The pair was suspected of climbing over a dying person to complete their mission, not giving the ailing man a second thought.

The suffering sherpa eventually passed away while Harila was still climbing to the top of the mountain. Had Harila taken the time to help the fallen sherpa, she may not have completed her ascent in record time. However, her assistance could have saved his life.

Harila’s Instagram account was slammed with comments calling out her selfish behavior. “The blood of sherpas is on your hands,” one person wrote. Another commenter took a shot at Harila’s tarnished legacy, saying, “Nobody will remember your sporting success, only your inhumanity.”

She said she was forced to come forward after “all of the misinformation and hatred that is now being spread.” Harila even claimed to have gotten death threats from her detractors. Though she herself did not stay to help the trapped man, she insisted that a member of her team remained with him in an attempt to help.

She felt it was alright to continue on her climb after a distress call was sent out from another team. That, paired with the knowledge of her crew staying with the man, led Harila to believe that the sherpa was in good hands. She was confident he would survive, but she was mistaken.

Harila tried to brush off responsibility by stating that “other people were passing by” and had gone on without fault. Harila thought there was nothing else she could do for Hassan, so she did the only thing she knew how to do by carrying on with her journey.

After an hour passed, Gabriel had to leave the dying man behind because he was short on oxygen. For his own safety and well-being, the cameraman had no choice but to abandon the man on the mountain.

As they made their way down, they heard news of Hassan’s death. She said her small team was not capable of carrying his body down the mountain and that it would have been a job for at least six people.

She maintained that she and her team had done everything in their power to increase his chance of survival. “We had done our best, especially Gabriel,” she said. Harila suggested that Hassan was “not properly equipped for the climb,” and revealed that he was not outfitted for the kind of weather conditions one would experience while climbing a mountain in the Himalayas.

Some even blasted the man’s operator for not properly preparing him for the journey that would ultimately result in his demise. The comment section was divided on who was most responsible for Hassan’s death, but everyone seemed to agree that more could have been done to avoid such a bleak outcome.

That tragedy is known as “the single deadliest event” in K2’s history. In addition, this past June, Scottish climber Rick Allen died on K2 in an avalanche. That same month, rescuers discovered the bodies of three more climbers. As of August 2022, 96 climbers have lost their lives while trying to climb K2.