WTF! Man Rescued While Climbing Japan's Mt. Fuji GOES BACK Days Later For His Phone! And Guess What...

A man was rescued from a spot close to the peak of Japan’s Mount Fuji last week after he became nearly overcome with altitude sickness. Thankfully, he was okay after being brought down the mountain by a search crew — but it’s what he did a couple days later that has the entire world picking our jaws up off the floor!

Last Tuesday, according to CBS News, a climber identified only as a 27-year-old Chinese student living in Japan made an emergency call to rescue officials in the Mount Fuji region after trying and failing to scale the country’s highest mountain. He was very near the peak, but he had begun to develop altitude sickness and needed assistance. Even worse, according to the report, his climbing irons had been damaged.

So, a rescue team swooped in with a helicopter. Thankfully, they were able to reach the man quickly. They airlifted him out of there, got him back down to a more sensible altitude, and helped him recover fully. There was just one little problem: the dude forgot his phone high up on the mountain!

So, on Saturday — just four days after he was airlifted off the mountain — the climber returned. According to Agence France-Presse, the man walked right back up the Fujinomiya Trail and reached as high as roughly 10,000 feet above sea level to look for the cell phone he’d left behind during his rescue roughly 96 hours prior.

That outlet cited a police spokesperson who said the 27-year-old was hell-bent on finding his phone. But!!! He got sick from the altitude AGAIN while walking up the trail. And that time, he became so ill that he was unable to move! Thankfully, he was found by another climber, who radioed in the issue and helped drag the man down the mountain to a waiting group of rescue workers. There, the experts saved the dude for a second time. IN FOUR DAYS!

Per CBS News, local media outlets were unable to confirm whether the man had been able to find his phone before his second bout of altitude sickness and repeat rescue off the imposing mountain. But… dude… this might be a sign: STOP HIKING!!!

FYI, that outlet reports that Mount Fuji’s hiking trails are only officially open between July and early September, so this man was climbing the mountain during its offseason. That said, there’s no penalty for climbing out of season — and plenty of climbers do it. You just have to, ya know, understand your limitations. Which this guy apparently did not…

The real uproar here is that there is also no fee which climbers must pay for their own rescue. That has left locals enraged at this dude for needing two professional rescues off Mount Fuji in less than a week. According to BBC News, Japanese social media users are calling for the guy to be fined for being so irresponsible to need two rescues like that.

Offseason hiking means trickier weather issues, too, that outlet noted — which makes things more difficult when rescuers are called out. Plus, most medical facilities along the trails are closed during offseason months. So, basically, this whole thing was a s**t show from the beginning!

And hey, one rescue is scary and unfortunate, but maybe understood. S**t happens. But TWO rescues?! Especially when the second one was to save the guy after trying to recover his PHONE?!?!

Bruh…

For what it’s worth, hiking Mount Fuji has been a source of controversy in recent years. So many people do it nowadays — the BBC estimated more than 220,000 people climbed the mountain in the July-September 2023 season alone — that locals set an entry fee last year to cap the number of climbers going up its slopes.

Then, last May, a nearby town with a perfect view of Mount Fuji got so f**king sick of tourists infesting their village that they put up a set of black screens to block the mountain! You can see their bid to block the prying eyes (and cell phone cameras…) of tourists (below):

We wonder what folks in THAT town think of this guy’s ill-fated cell phone quest…

And we wonder what U think about it, too, Perezcious readers!! Should he have to pay for his second rescue, especially considering how boneheaded a decision it was for him to go back up the mountain?!

Sound OFF with your takes down in the comments (below)…