The next morning, John Roskelley and Rick Ridgeway found him continuing down while on their way to the summit. Wickwire lost parts of two toes and underwent lung surgery due to blood clots on his lungs (pulmonary emboli); he also caught pneumonia and pleurisy. The Pakistani army helicoptered Wickwire right from the glacier at the bottom of the mountain, and Wickwire immediately underwent lung surgery. The surgeon expressed uncertainty about Wickwire's ever climbing at high altitudes again. Nevertheless, Wickwire continued high-altitude climbing a couple of years later, climbing the slopes of Alaska's Mount McKinley in preparation for his climbing expedition on Mount Everest.