Marc Kopp has become the first person with a disability in the world to successfully make the jump from the summit of Everest, nearly 9,000 metres high, down to the foot of the mountain.
Fox News reported that Marc Kopp, 55, jumped from a helicopter hovering at an altitude of nearly 9,000 metres, together with his friend Mario Gervasi, an expert skydiver. He expressed his pride: “I feel so happy, even though I am exhausted”. He is now being cared for by doctors, who are checking the injuries he sustained during the skydive at a hospital in Kathmandu.
Marc Kopp lives in Longwy, north-east of Paris, and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001; his nerves have degenerated, making his muscles hard to move, and his brain and spinal cord have been damaged. The disease is incurable, and in the worst case a patient can become mute or unable to walk. But this could not stop him rising to new heights. Despite the pain, he learnt to use a wheelchair and endured the hardship of riding a horse for many days before reaching the Himalayas to get to the jumping runway. Although at times he did not believe his dream could come true, he firmly affirmed: “Even when you are full of illness, you are still alive!”
Huong Nguyen
According to Fox News