Featured Image Credit: 7News. Maciej Bledowski / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Australia, News, Mount Everest
Charisa Bossinakis
Topics: Australia, News, Mount Everest
An Australian man has died while descending from Mount Everest.
9News reported that Jason Bernard Kennison began experiencing engineering difficulties causing him to run out of oxygen while climbing 450 metres down the mountain in an area called 'The Balcony'.
The 40-year-old had successfully reached Everest's 8,849 metre peak before things took a turn for the worst.
A guide told AFP they noticed the man began behaving abnormally while descending.
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“Since the oxygen cylinders that they had with them were running out, they decided to descend to Camp 4 hoping to climb back again with oxygen cylinders to rescue him,” 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.
The Aussie set out on his expedition to Everest after relearning how to walk again.
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He suffered multiple broken bones and a spinal cord injury from a road accident in 2006 and was told he might not be able to walk.
His epic climb aimed to raise funds for Spinal Cord Injuries Australia to help others in similar predicaments.
Before he left to conquer the summit, Kennison 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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During an acclimatisation ascent earlier this month, a retired US doctor, Jonathan Sugarman, died in Camp II at approximately 6,400m of elevation.
"He was feeling unwell and passed away at Camp 2. Efforts are underway to bring (back) his body," Pasang Tshering Sherpa of Beyul Adventure said at the time, as per Outside.
It came after three Nepali sherpas went missing after an avalanche hit the mountain.
According to The Kathmandu Post, while the team was climbing, a massive ice sheet of more than 50 metres was hurled down Everest, below Camp 1 at 5,700 metres, leading the three Sherpa guides to be buried underneath.
The missing Sherpas were identified as Themwa Tenzing Sherpa, Lakpa Rita Sherpa and Badure Sherpa.
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An Everest base camp coordinator of the Himalayan Rescue Association, Lakpa Norbu Sherpa, said that the likelihood of finding them was 'very slim', according to NDTV.