Wife’s Everest death relived

Agonising last hours of Pretoria-born adventurer

AN Australian who made it to the top of Everest has blamed himself after his South African-born wife died in the “death zone” on the world’s highest peak.

In an emotional interview, Robert Gropel spoke of the final hours of Maria Strydom, who died in his arms on May 20 as they struggled to descend the mountain.

“I’m her husband, it’s my job to protect my wife and get her home and it’s just natural for me to blame myself,” he told Australia’s Seven Network.

“I can’t . . . I still can’t look at any pictures of her. It breaks my heart.”

Gropel described the moment he decided to push on to the top and leave his wife, who was suffering from exhaustion and altitude sickness. “I didn’t want to separate from her – I wanted her to keep going,” he said.

“I asked: ‘Do you mind if I go on?’ She said: ‘You go on. I’ll wait for you here.’

“From that position the summit didn’t look that far,” Gropel said.

Although he made it to the top, he admitted “it didn’t mean anything to me” without his wife.

Once he returned to her, they started the slow descent as they both battled the effects of being above 8 000 metres – a height at which humans can survive for only so long.

He shared oxygen but the supply ran out, at which point he remembered he had medication for altitude sickness.

“It took a while for me to register that I had medication and so as soon as I realised I gave her a dexamethasone injection.”

His Pretoria-born wife had been without extra oxygen for 20 hours when she slipped into unconsciousness.

“I could see that her condition had deteriorated,” Gropel said.

“She was going through periods of being lucid and periods of hallucinating.”

After she died in his arms, Gropel left her body and continued his descent.

“Walking away was the hardest thing [for him],” Gropel’s interviewer, Steve Pennells, said in the broadcast.

Gropel, a vet, and his wife, a university lecturer, had been close to completing the Seven Summits, a challenge in which mountaineers climb the tallest peak on every continent.

Eric Arnold, a 36-year-old Dutch climber, also died during the descent after reaching the summit.