DAVID SMITH MBE
PARALYMPIC GOLD MEDALLIST CHARTS HIS RECOVERY FROM SPINAL TUMOURS each day as the last.Finding something extra right now means different things to different people. Each of us has different comfort zones that we must push out of.
The year 2020 has challenged most of mankind so far, but as I sit thinking of Kurz hanging on this rope, exposed for four nights in freezing conditions with his team dead around him fighting for his life, I try to imagine what this 23-year-old was thinking. How did he stay strong?
As a rescue team tried to reach him, Kurz had to cut the rope below him, which would see his friend fall to the ground below, to get himself into the best position for a rescue attempt.
The rescue team had dropped their long rope on the way to Kurz and were left with two short ropes instead, so they tied them together and passed the rope to him so he could abseil down to safety.
Unfortunately as Kurz abseiled down he hit the knot that held both ropes together.
Unable to pass the rope through his carabiner, he tried for hours to push the knot through as the rescue team watched on – unable to do anything to help.
After surviving four nights hanging on a rope, it was going to be a knot that would be his biggest challenge. As the rescue team looked on a few metres away, Kurz said the words “I can’t go on anymore”. They were his last words.
But we can still learn from the way Toni Kurz pursued his passion to the end. And how he fought so hard on the unforgiving north face of the Eiger.