An Australian man who climbed Mount Everest after learning to walk again has died on his return from the summit.
Jason Bernard Kennison died on Friday.
His family said “he achieved his goal of reaching the peak ... he stood on top of this world, but sadly didn’t come home.”
Photo: AFP
The 40-year-old mechanic was part of an expedition run by Asian Trekking, whose managing director, Dawa Steven Sherpa, told the Himalayan Times that Kennison had started showing abnormal behavior from the south summit.
The two Sherpa guides with him helped him down to the balcony area, which is 8,400m above sea level. The guides descended to camp four after Kennison refused to move, Dawa Steven Sherpa said.
“Since the oxygen cylinders that they had with them were running out, they decided to descend to camp four, hoping to climb back again with oxygen cylinders to rescue him,” he told Agence France-Presse.
However, strong winds and bad weather prevented the guides from returning immediately, the Himalayan Times reported.
Kennison’s climb came 17 years after he was told he might never walk again, following a 2006 car accident that left him battling spinal cord injuries and depression. He was using his ascent to raise money for Spinal Cord Injuries Australia.
He wrote on JustGiving that his motivation to climb Everest came after another spinal procedure three years ago brought another round of rehab.
“Someone close to me convinced me that I was still capable of being able to do anything I wanted,” he wrote.
He said the gift of a surfboard had given him the motivation “to see my life in a different light, to view what I was missing personally inside, and admire the obstacles that I had overcome.”
“In 2023, I will head to Nepal, to see and be on Mount Everest, a long way from once battling traumatic injuries and the low and dark days of depression. An ambitious feat that I would never have dreamed of, or thought was possible after once being told that I would not be able to walk,” he said.
“I am going to make the most of my life and part of that involves helping other people who have had their life changed in an instant through spinal cord injury. They shouldn’t be forgotten. They should be helped,” he said.
His family wrote on social media that “he was the most courageous, adventurous human we knew and he will be forever missed.”
Before he left for Everest, Kennison spoke to Australian broadcaster 7NEWS.
“I’ve always challenged myself internally overcoming these things. Everest has become this symbol to me of overcoming those challenges and getting that fulfilment,” he said.
In the lead-up to the ascent he flew to New Zealand for mountaineering courses, practiced abseiling and rock climbing, and set up training in his back yard for ladder crossing, jumaring and roping.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing consular assistance to the family of an Australian who had died in Nepal.
Mount Everest has recorded 10 deaths this spring season, with two climbers still missing above the high camps, the Himalayan Times reported.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home