Kilimanjaro is the highest free standing mountain in the
world, at 5895 meters or 19,341 feet altitude one of the Earth’s highest
volcanoes. Not technically difficult but altitude & weather make it
challenging, after having massive heart failure I found it to be the perfect
place to test oneself.
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| Our first view of Kilimanjaro, The roof of Africa |
Several years ago a man attacked me because of the uniform I
was wearing, I was a Massachusetts State Trooper. At 6’2’’ hyped up on street
drugs he came at me faster than I could react, we fought hand to hand because I
chose not to shoot him, my gun being the only weapon I had on me that day. When
my radio was broken the squelch button must have gone off because my dispatch called
to see if I was ok. When I didn’t respond, Trooper Kelly, a fellow former U.S.
Marine said he got a gut feeling & headed in my last known direction only
to find me unconscious & still clinging to this man’s neck in some
desperate wrestling move I was attempting before going out as he was slamming
my head against the concrete building adjacent. Trooper Kelly saved me that
day.
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| My self as a young state trooper |
It was a long recovery but I worked several more years as a police
officer before a mysterious anxiety overcame me. We thought it was Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD but it turned out that the head injury caused
sleep apnea which then in turn caused heart failure, 30% of my heart became
nonviable. 1/3. With an ejection fraction of 15 I was given roughly 5 years to
live O& told I would never climb to altitude again.
All my life I have climbed mountains, my wife Serenity &
I have travelled from Alaska to Bolivia climbing walls of rock & ice,
putting up new routes & setting a Guinness Book World Record luge sledding
down. (1998 book page 277) sea kayaking and SCUBA diving. Now I had a difficult
time just carrying my groceries up the stairs to my home.
http://www.expeditionoutreach.org/
So after a long talk with my wife regarding of what is the
true value in life, we agreed, only love, our love & the love of what we
enjoy most, thus was born our 5 year series of WildHeart Expeditions starting
with an expedition to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
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| Serenity & I years before after crossing the Andres to the Amazon Jungle of Bolivia |
My full time job
was now cardiac rehab & training took precedence over everything else. With
support from Summit Oxygen, an 02 company for climbers & a friend in North
Conway N.H. Rick Wilcox, the first New Englander to climb Mount Everest I was
ready to lead an expedition. The team I put together consisted of 4 men who
also had heart issues though accomplished athletes it seemed to affect them
less. I connected with The Keys Hotel, one of the finest possible outfitters in
Tanzania to support our expedition & equipment sponsors got on board.
http://www.ime-usa.com/ htthttp://www.keys-hotel-tours.com
So was born, The 2015
WildHeart-No Limits International Kilimanjaro Expedition.
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| https://www.facebook.com/groups/1398114007116751/ |
My wife Serenity, a
heavy metal musician Matt Shanahan, future mountain guide Andre Mattos, Doctor
Joshua Hirsch, a Chiropractor from Jaffrey N.H. who offered high altitude back
treatments, his son Christian, a naval cadet & friend Arno Mayer made up
the New England part of our team. Ken Bell a successful business man from
California who has the goal of reaching the world’s seven highest peaks &
our contingent from the Swiss Alps Tracie & Philippe May whose impressive
athletic resumes made me wonder if I were up to the task of being their team
leader.
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Team Wild Heart and our massive support of porters guides & cooks from the Keys Hotel
Tracie Sachs-May – Also a Guinness Book World Record holder
& 5 time World Cup Champion speed skiing. 4 time pro World Champion &
more, & her husband Philippe May - 13 time Swiss Champion Speed Skiing.
Former World Cup Champion and Pro World Campion Speed Skiing. Fastest speed
250.000 km/h or 156 mph. One of 5 men to ever ski over 250 who just finished
The RAAM: Race Across America and took 3rd place in the mixed category; 6 days
20 hours 39 minutes on a road bike just a few months prior to leaving.
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Tracie & Phillippe May
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From my KLM plane seat where we
sat for 20 hours I saw both The French Alps & the Sahara Desert, arriving
late in Tanzania and exhausted we settled in to our rooms at the Keys Hotel
which was more like a Caribbean resort than a stopping off point for the
massive struggle ahead.
The French Alps & Sahara Desert from my airplane seat
Before we left we connected with
Michael Aronson from ReRun Shoes http://www.rerunshoes.com/ who donated four expedition sized duffel bags of
children’s shoes for us to carry to an orphanage in Africa. We all spent our
first day together at the Tuleeni Orphanage run by Mama Faraji P.O. Box 8562
Moshi-Tanzania East Africa e-mail tuleenichildren@yahoo.com as part of our WildHeart ReRun Mission, we each carried
shoes & shirts & hygiene products in our packs. As a retired cop &
former U.S. Marine in Desert Storm I am no stranger to suffering, but the
orphanage still took me off guard, they receive no government support &
rely on gifts from climbers.
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| The WildHeart ReRun Mission |
The next day we travelled to The
Machame Gate 5,718 feet altitude & after some administration & flirting
with the English girls on expedition who all sounded like Hermione from the
Harry Potter series we were off, the first day is a trek through the Jungle to
Camp 1 at 9,927 feet. We had a staff of over 60 porters, guides, cooks &
assistant cooks. Our cook prepared special medicine for everyone with coughs
from the volcanic soil that got in our lungs they called Duka La Dawa, hot
water with Ginger & Garlic, which tasted much like vinegar to me but it
worked like magic.
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The crowded but warm Machame Camp 1
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Day 2 Dehydration &
Hypothermia! We all left for the Shira Plateau for Shira camp at 12,355 feet.
Each day the only difficulty was the constant packing & repacking,
unpacking & taking of both blood samples to determine my INR, (to adjust my
dose of Coumadin, a blood thinner) & taking my blood pressures & the
teams oxygen saturations for our study of heart failure at altitude.
Pushing on Serenity & I
were our usual hour behind when it began to rain, the higher we went the colder
it became & Serene made one small mistake that cascaded. In the rush to get
on the trail behind our team she simply forgot to mix her electrolyte drink, a dietary staple and ‘bonked’ or
rather started dehydrating in the heat, so when the temp dropped suddenly as we
ascended and the rain came in hypothermia set in. By the time we rolled into
Shira Camp Serene couldn’t use her fingers to sign her name at the hut &
was shivering uncontrollably. She didn’t seem to recognize me or at least was
not able to answer my questions. I got her in a sleeping bag & dressed in
warm clothes & I started her on some oxygen & rehydrating with BRL’s
Trifuel .
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| Images of our Shira Camp 2 |
Day 3: Serenity felt better but
we decided to spend an extra day at the Shira Camp, Matt stayed with us as his
asthma was kicking in & the decision was made to split the team in two. I
have done this before on expeditions so I knew it wasn’t as hopeless as it may
have felt for some, yet I noticed that I was hearing less & less from my
designated Midland handheld Radio Team Leaders. We did receive information that
the team reached Lava Tower 14,950 feet altitude & Ken & Philippe even
climbed to the top of it.
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Day 4 The Tower: The bulk of the
team pushed on down to Barranco Camp (13,066) to rest Matt, Serenity & I,
now the rear party made our push for Lava Tower. Each step was a monumental effort in forcing
air in & out of my lungs, sounding like a machine I chugged along until my Heart
Rate Monitor reached higher than 130, the set limit for my heart rate before
resting. To avoid dropping to my feet I would yell out, 130! In time my porters
knew this meant a 2-3 minute stop, leaning on my Leki Trekking Poles until my
heart rate returned with what runners call a recover on the fly. All my heart
rate numbers had to be adjusted to meet my condition, what is aerobic for some could
mean unconsciousness for me, & what is considered a rate that is lightly
fat burning is my deep aerobic zone. It’s a science but one I had not mastered
before leaving for Kilimanjaro. With each new step I learned something new
about myself.
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We eventually reached Lava
Tower, a cold & desolate place, we were the only ones there & we had
given our team the only cook tent, but we kept the toilet tent so it was a fair
arrangement. Eating outside & taking blood samples with mud soaked hands under
a vast Milky Way of stars was as challenging as it was magnificent. My blood
pressure was nearing 200. Serenity threatened to pull the plug on my
participation in the expedition if I couldn’t get it lower with blood pressure
medication. We upped my dose of blood pressure pills and stopped the blood
thinners as my INR was also dangerously high. By morning it came down.
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Lava Tower Camp
Day 5 Recuperation: Serenity,
Matt & I descended to Barranco Camp, beneath the great wall separating us
from high camp & the summit. Meeting up with the team was energizing &
I hit Doctor Josh up for a Chiropractic healing. http://jaffreychiropractic.com/
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| Doctor Joshua Hirsch Chiropractor at altitude! |
Day 6 The Barranco Wall: Not
really technical but the fourth class rock climbing was about the most fun I
have had in a long time. I love hanging by my fingers looking down at a valley
thousands of feet below. The clouds beneath us only clear sky above & Mount
Meru in plain sight, we reached the top of the Barranco Wall easily & with
one more valley to cross, we reached Karanga Camp.
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Matt Shanahan & I rest for a moment
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Day 7 High Camp, 15,239 feet.
Crossing one valley after another we made the final steep ascent to Barafu
Camp. Upon reaching our tent Serenity looked at me & told me flat out, “I
rolled an ankle & it’s pretty bad”. I asked, when the hell did you do that
& she said about an hour after I started the climb. She knew I would have
scrapped my summit shot, that I was not there for myself, that the summit would
mean so much less without her, so she lied, she held in the pain & hid
herself from my view, I was so busy counting my breaths & pushing the
thinning air in & out of my lungs I never noticed her pain, in 28 years of
marriage her feelings never went so unnoticed. We talked about the need for me
to go on, even if I had to go alone as I couldn’t hope to keep pace with my
team, they were all strong & with only minor differences in pace they
pretty much stayed together. We were all
now high on the slopes of Kilimanjaro!
Day 8 Summit Push: Most of the Brafu Camp expedition teams left at
midnight for a chance to see the sunrise from the summit. A plan that didn’t
work for the majority of climbers. The main body of our expedition left
together for the summit between three and four AM. I didn’t even try to fall in
line behind them or any other team, if I were going to do this, I had to get
deeply into my head, then out of it completely. A guide had to accompany me by
the ‘rules’ of the mountain & a high altitude porter carried some extra
oxygen.
I watched the sunrise near Mount Mweka and the dazzling illumination of
the clouds below me. It was not until 16,400 feet that I turned on my oxygen, I
tried to go as long as possible to strengthen my lungs but in truth, I breath
oxygen at sea level! It wasn’t magic but it made all the difference. It takes a
lot of effort to commit yourself to the heavy breathing of it, and at 4 liters
per minute I found my new rhythm. My pace got a bit faster than before but now
at higher & higher altitudes and it wasn’t long before I met Kilimanjaro’s
first victim.
Summit Fever: Lying flat on the
ground with no guide or porters anywhere near was Raj, of Indian descent living
in the UK & with a weak pulse, he was starving for oxygen. What could I do
but rip off my mask & offer him mine? Shortly he was revived & we spoke
about breathing & I thought it was his intent to decent, when I finally got
my mask back on I cleared the fog out of my glacier glasses only to see him use
this temporary energy to sprint up another 40 yards before dropping again. This
scenario played itself over again with people from several other expeditions
before reaching the high ridge known as Stella Point. On the flat ground the bodies
were strewn about the ground, littered even, all young climbers whose first big
mountain was Kilimanjaro, all half-awake & struggling to breathe. The
common mistake was to spend less on a discounted guided trip & try to reach
the summit in a few short days, this nearly always had consequences.
I made a resolve not to rest for
more than a moment at Stella Point & keep pushing on, I couldn’t bare the
thought of me lying on the ground in this crowd of zombies playing out a scene
of the Walking Dead.
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| http://www.summitoxygen.com/ |
My guide seemed happy that I
wanted to push on from Stella Point, a place of happy disillusionment, flat
enough to imagine you reached the top, but still forty five minutes away in
thin air. What I didn’t know yet was
that my team was waiting for me on the summit, they had been there approximately
an hour, but the weather was holding & they cheered me on with a final
upward push I reached the highest point in Africa. Uhuru peak!
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Team Summit Shot with our expedition banner
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We honor the gift of life through risk, my teammates inspired me, for in
their presence I could do no less. We took all the usual summit photos &
Ken hugged me & asked me, “What drives you man”? It was a question I still
ponder, was it I had something to prove? Did I reduce Kilimanjaro with
supplemental oxygen for ego gratification? I kept telling myself that I was doing it for
all the Cardiac Athletes out there but did I play fair? Does it even count
& then the big one, I’m now at 19,341 feet and I’m low on oxygen because I
had been giving it all out to strangers.
Hanging out without my oxygen on the summit made me feel the altitude
even more I suspect, we all started the descent and Matt asked me how high are we, all I could muster up in response is ‘too high, way too high’ as
my pace quickened letting my heavy body drag me down across the volcanic dust. http://ironheartfoundation.org/
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The IronHeart Foundation
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Pains is Truly Weakness Leaving Our Bodies!
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| The Four Cardiac Athletes On Top |
Mountain Madness: Serenity &
I are no strangers to mountain rescue or emergency medical care, so our
instincts kicked in on the descent when we saw a half dozen porters carrying a
man down in a wheel barrel. This victim’s eyes were rolled into his head and we
could not find a pulse at first, then, it was faint at its best when we gave
him oxygen. He was breathing, but just barely.
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Mr. Dawson & I after we got Josh into the ambulance
I surrendered all my oxygen and Serenity
and I forced water into him with this odd jaw lift - head tilt method we sort
of made up as we went, it was many hours of worry until we saww him to the
ambulance drop off point & safe at lower altitude. We finally made what is
called an ambulance drop off & so it goes on Kilimanjaro.
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The Roof of Africa
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On Safari: No Kilimanjaro
expedition is complete without a photo safari in the Serengeti. One of the
coolest things that can happen to anyone while on expedition is to Not-Die, Perhaps
the most danger we were in was when my courageous wife Serenity, in the
tradition of many explorers who came before her she wanted to interact with the
wildlife and she petted a wild African monkey! They connected nearly
immediately but this bond was only temporary as Serene got bit, Being of sound
mind I followed by further petting this same monkey only she seemed to like
me.
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Mweka, the Monkey & Me
When we got home Serenity & I went to the Infectious
disease control unit of our hospital to find out if we had in fact survived our
Kilimanjaro expedition or if we were just waiting to die some horrible death
from the monkey bite, which had drew blood, the doctor started his speech by
saying "now I don't want to alarm you but this monkey, The Macaque has
been known to carry disease which first causes massive brain tissue damage and
loss of most bodily functions and soon after a painful death, now he says, you
really shouldn't panic, we both looked at him like, yea, what is there not to
panic about? He then said, the monkey that bit you Serenity is not a Macaque
and is totally harmless.
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The meaning of Extreme is a
'relative thing' I have come to appreciate all those out there struggling with
health issues, physical, mental and emotional, an extreme sport for some could
be simply getting their groceries. I have always found extreme sports to be in
the variety of spiritual experience more than sport & like all spiritual
experiences your fears must be faced. After the assault on my life I suffer
from anxiety, (sometimes severe), agoraphobia & panic attacks that make it
even harder to breath. I found that I was able to hold it together to reach the
summit of Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain and understand that I am the
first to do so with such a condition. not the type of record that will get in
any books though it was monumental for me.
Each night I had to reconnect with
my breath using meditation, and a yoga called pranayama along with a style of
breath-work called Butekyo Breathing which worked powerfully. http://www.buteykoclinic.com/
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Stay strong for one more day I
would tell myself. I was supposed to die this year according to my first
cardiologists prediction but instead of that, I climbed, I'm not a very
talented or educated man, & I have more than my share of health issues, but
I just decided to do it and if I can do this, than I would say there is no
limit to what you can do, life gives us plenty of ‘mountainous’ obstacles that
seem to prevent us from finding happiness and peace and I would never reduce
someone’s pain but I found it help to get really present with
how you are feeling. Pain has a difficult time when you breathe into it
powerfully, in the end my success was all about focusing on my breath with
every ounce of strength I had and after that, concentrating even harder on my
next breath.
Respectfully, Michael Coyne: Expedition
Outreach
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| With Courage, Focus & A Wild Heart, Anything is Possible! |
