Joshua Cheruiyot Kirui a Kenyan mountain climber died while attempting to summit Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.
Kirui was confirmed dead on May 23, 2024, after he was earlier reported missing while scaling the heights of Mt Everest which summits at 8,849 meters.
Following his death, Kenyans online have been anticipating the retrieval of his body a process considered tedious and risky.
It is usually high risk to climb those massive eight-thousand-kilometers, but it is even riskier for rescue crews, sherpas, and pilots to get someone down from the peak.
When Nepal government officials confirmed Kirui’s death, they could not say when his body would be recovered due to the difficulty of carrying out such an operation with the altitude and low oxygen levels.
However, a video of an operation on Mt Everest has been circulating on social media, with users claiming it is Kirui’s body being retrieved meters from the summit.
The video depicted a helicopter carrying a mountaineer’s body from high up the mountain, after which fellow climbers received.
Also Read: There Are Over 200 Corpses on Mt Everest: Story of Most Famous One
Body Airlifted is not Cheruiyot Kirui
A fact check by The Kenya Times revealed that the body shown in the video was not that of Cheruiyot Kirui.
To begin with, the mountaineer being airlifted was not dead but placed on oxygen. He can be seen in the clip lifting his arms as the rescuers carried him to a hospital.
Also, a reverse search showed that the video of the body recovery operation by the Helicopter Longline Rescue team was first shared on the starflex3fifty Instagram page on June 24, 2023.
The video was later reshared on the Mountain.trekking and allnepalhiking Instagram page on May 5, 2024, in courtesy of @starflex3fifty.
According to Starflex3fifty, they share these clips not only to show the beautiful sides of their work but also to show the many moments where they are confronted with human tragedies.
“It’s a high risk to climb those massive 8k mountains and it is as risky to get someone down again who can’t manage it them self anymore,” they shared a quote accompanying the video.
“This is not to point fingers or blame anyone. It’s rather to make award about the fact that, when you decide to go up any mountain think a little about the people who have to get you down if you get sick, exhausted, didn’t brought the proper equipment needed or simply overestimated yourself and the skills you bring to the mountains you chose to climb.”
Also Read: Cheruiyot Kirui: Inspiring Career of Banker who Died Climbing Mt Everest
Retrieving Body from Everest
More than 200 bodies are frozen in time on Mt. Everest, and the number grows every year. Climbers’ bodies lie tucked into crevasses, buried in the Himalayan ice, or swept off the mountain by ferocious winds.
Sun-bleached bodies remain frozen, serving as guides for those who still dare to summit the mountain.
Due to the vast number of bodies at the “highest point on Earth,” the mountain has earned the nickname “the world’s largest open-air graveyard.”
Some climbers who undertake this daring journey wish to be left on the mountain if they die.
Of note is that it takes six to eight Sherpas to go on a recovery mission and bring down a dead body from the mountain, which could weigh about 80 to 150 kilograms when frozen.
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