Does anyone else find this funny?
Maria Strydom dies on Mount Everest, tackled trek ‘to prove that vegans can do anything’
An Australian woman who intended to prove that “vegans can do anything and more” died Friday while attempting to scale Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth.
Maria Strydom, a 34-year-old Monash Business School finance lecturer, made it roughly 400 meters shy of the summit when she began suffering from altitude sickness and died while attempting to descend.
“She could not resist any more her weakness, and she stopped breathing right there,” said Furtengi Sherpa, the operational manager of Seven Summit Treks.
Strydom previously made it to the top of some of the tallest mountains in the world, including Denali and Kilimanjaro, and she was determined to scale the seven highest summits on Earth, of which Everest ranks first.
In an interview published on March 2 on the Monash Business School website, Strydom said that she and her husband, who both are accomplished climbers who consume neither meat nor dairy, together set their sights on Everest after doubts were raised by skeptics due to possible iron and protein deficiencies caused by their diets.
“It seems that people have this warped idea of vegans being malnourished and weak,” she told the website. “By climbing the seven summits, we want to prove that vegans can do anything and more.”
