Yak gores Everest trekker as she speaks to family in video call
A BRITISH woman was gored by a Himalayan yak while on a video call to her family as she trekked to Everest base camp.
Emma Keen was hiking to base camp on the fourth day of an 80-mile charity expedition when she was attacked by the animal in the Nepalese village of Tengboche.
The 42-year-old shop manager from south Wales was speaking to her brother on a video call when she spotted the yak standing 6ft away.
“Without warning, I could hear the hoofs pounding towards me and then a sharp stabbing pain in the top of my leg,” she told Wales Online.
“It threw me up in the air around a metre and I landed with a thud. Clutching my upper leg I looked and the yak was dragging its hoof in the dusty ground ready to go at me for a second time with his horns down ... I screamed and managed to raise my leg and shout.”
Fellow mountaineers, including Carl Marsh, a firefighter, went to her aid when they saw blood gushing from Ms Keen’s leg. She was later airlifted to the Lukla Airport Hospital where she had 10 stitches in the wound, which was three inches wide.
Despite her injuries and only able to walk with difficulty, she promised to complete the expedition and later rejoined her group to finish the final leg on horseback.
Ms Keen, who has raised more than £2,300 for Kidney Wales, said: “It was important that I continue with the trek as it meant so much to me.
“Before I headed out for the flight, I could imagine myself at base camp – something I had been training for and looking forward to for over a year.”
She was raising money for the charity because her mother suffered from polycystic kidney disease and her brother is on the transplant waiting list.
Ms Keen added: “My charity means a lot to me as my brother, Peter, is desperately needing a kidney.
“When the accident happened I just kept thinking of him and how he would feel if I got to base camp.”