Climber who wanted to become ‘first Asian woman with pacemaker’ to scale Everest dies

‘We had told her to abandon the climb five days ago’

A school teacher who aspired to become the first Asian with a pacemaker to scale Mount Everest died while making the attempt.

Suzanne Leopoldina Jesus, a 59-year-old woman from India’s western Maharashtra state, died on Thursday after she climbed 5,800m – a little higher than the base camp of the world’s highest mountain which stands at 8,848m.

Leopoldina Jesus had to be “forcibly” airlifted on Wednesday evening to a hospital from the mountain, said Dendi Sherpa, chairman of expedition organiser Glacier Himalayan Trek.

The woman was advised to abandon her attempt to scale Everest as she was not able to maintain a normal speed during acclimatisation exercises on base camp, said Yuvaraj Khatiwada, director at the Tourism Department of Nepal.

The climber insisted on continuing because she said she already paid a fee to get permission to climb Mt Everest, reported the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.

“We had told her to abandon the climb five days ago, but she was committed to ascending Everest”, said Mr Sherpa. “We had to take her back to Lukla [nearby town] forcibly,” he said.

Leopoldina Jesus wanted to set a world record by becoming Asia’s first person with a pacemaker and the oldest Indian to summit the world’s highest mountain peak.

Mr Sherpa said they wrote a letter to the Department of Tourism saying she was not qualified to ascend the mountain as she took more than five hours to reach Crompton Point, usually scaled by fit climbers in 15-20 minutes.

They said it took her six hours to reach the same point in a second attempt, and 12 hours the third time, during the acclimatisation exercises, he said.

“However, she wanted to set a new world record by becoming the first Asian woman to summit Everest with a pacemaker,” he said.

He said the woman was suffering difficulties in her throat and was not able to swallow her food.

Her body was flown to capital Kathmandu and was taken to Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital for an autopsy.

On Thursday, another climber, a Chinese man, died after reaching Everest’s so-called death zone, at a height of 8,000m, just a little lower than the top of the mountain, at a 8,849m height.

The two deaths have taken the death toll of those attempting to scale Mt Everest to eight for the current season that began in March.

Everest has been climbed more than 11,000 times since it was first scaled in 1953 and, so far, 320 climbers have died on the mountain.