Akke Rahman has become the first Muslim from the United Kingdom to summit Mount Everest, the world's highest peak.
Rahman climbed the 8,849-meter peak in the early hours of Friday, May 13 as part of a fundraising challenge for "Peak Humanity," an initiative by Channel S TV, a British Bangladeshi satellite TV station, to raise funds for refugees and other humanitarian causes.
The 39-year-old , from Oldham, said he was exhilarated to have completed the "mission of my life."
He told Channel S TV:
“I just couldn’t believe that I was on top of the world. It was just so difficult, I was exhausted, but I knew I had to complete this mission. The weather was extremely cold, windy and rough. You cannot predict what will happen in a split second. For three or four days while I was climbing to the top, I was living on a couple of (chocolate) snicker bars a day.”
While climbing towards Mount Everest, Akke and his team saved the life of another mountaineer who was running out of oxygen.
“It was a guy called Les,” Rahman said. “He was from a different group where we got to know him. He ran out of oxygen at 7,800 metres. We had to stick together. I just said to the guys we have to share the oxygen… I don’t care how we get down. We have to get down to Camp 2 at 6,400 metres where we will be ok. We did radio the Sherpas to get some oxygen, but they didn’t get back to us. One of my teammates suggested we give Les his oxygen and bring him down safely. I wasn’t going to leave him behind. We brought him down safely.”
Rahman had already set a UK record time after climbing Mount Elbrus – Europe’s highest peak in Russia within 24 hours, and only five days after recovering from coronavirus. He also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Blanc, the highest mountains of Africa and the Alps respectively. He later completed Mount Amadablam, one of the highest mountains in the Himalayas (6856m). Rahman completed all these expeditions within one year.
