Tara Bolduc

Tim Warren wasn’t the only person with local ties on Mount Everest this year. Providence nurse and Weymouth, Mass., resident Tara Bolduc also went up the mountain, as the medical officer working for two television documentary groups.

Bolduc, 36, was on Everest for most of May, spending time at advanced base camp treating altitude sickness, stomach problems and other minor injuries. Most of the time, she wasn’t busy, she said.

“It was basically kind of boring,” she said.

She had intended to climb up to the North Col, at 23,000 feet, but fell and hurt her knee, and stayed at the advanced base camp at roughly 20,000 feet so that she could continue her medical duties. “I started to not feel right, and I said, if I’m going to be a practitioner I can’t go any higher,” she said.

She treated team members for stomach ailments such as dysentery, kept track of oxygen levels and handled blood disorders, some frostbite, and dealt with small issues such as knee and joint problems. Her team was fortunate enough to avoid a major injury.

“It was just like running a little ER. But my skills definitely came in handy, I was comfortable with everything I had to do up there.”

Bolduc suffered some frostbite on her foot, and lost several toenails.

She said she might return to Everest in 2009 as a medical staffer on another team’s climb, and is weighing a summit attempt herself sometime in the future.

—Daniel Barbarisi