Jason Kennison had survived a devastating car crash before undertaking the challenge
A mountain climber who died on Mt Everest had been preparing to conquer the mountain for years after surviving a car crash.
Jason Bernard Kennison, from Perth, Australia, died at the summit on Friday after he became unresponsive. The 40-year-old’s death is the 10th fatality recorded on the world’s highest mountain this year.
According to reports he has fulfilled his dream of reaching Everest’s 8,849-meter peak and was climbing down in an area called ‘The Balcony’ when he ran out of oxygen.
A guide told AFP they noticed Kennison was behaving abnormally while descending. Since the oxygen cylinders they had with them were running out, decided to descent to Camp 4 to “climb back again with oxygen cylinders to rescue,” Asian Trekking chief Dawa Steven Sherpa said.
Two guides managed to descend without risking their lives, but Kennison refused to move, and his remains are still on the mountain.
“It was high wind and bad weather that prevented them [from] going back to bring him down. He died at the Balcony area,” Sherpa added.
Kennison survived a devastating car crash in 2006 when a road train sideswiped the vehicle he was in while on his way to work.
The crash left the mechanic with a broken femur, a dislocated shoulder and a brain haemorrhage, among other injuries.
Kennison was forced to learn to walk again. Then suffered another set back, suffering further spinal nerve damage years later.
The incident forced Kennison to learn how to walk again – before he suffered further spinal nerve damage years later.
He set off on the expedition to raise funds for Spinal Cord Injuries Australia and before leaving described the adventure as “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”.
There have been 310 recorded deaths on Mount Everest.
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