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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS