AGAINST ALL ODDS
Car accidents, a hijacking, kidney stones, two strokes and a heart blockage – none of it stopped him climbing Africa’s highest peak
THE journey of life comes with many twists and turns and the ability to handle them can test the mettle of the strongest person. But if you ever need to look to someone for inspiration on how to deal with curveballs, Shaheen Soomar is your man. The 43-year-old dad from Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape has survived 11 car crashes, a hijacking, nine kidney stones, two strokes and a heart blockage, yet it hasn’t stopped him from living life to the fullest.
And he proved this recently when he summited Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, fulfilling a longstanding dream to climb Africa’s highest peak.
He’d planned to climb Mount Everest three years ago but the trip had to be cancelled after he suffered a stroke. So when a group of family and friends invited him to join them in climbing Kilimanjaro in July this year to raise funds for education in rural Tanzania, he jumped at the chance.
Unlike most climbers who tackle the mountain, Shaheen didn’t do much in the way of preparation.
“I didn’t do any research to see what the climb was going to be like – I just basically went into this thing completely blind,” he says. “A part of me felt I wanted to do it, while another part of me felt my medical condition wouldn’t allow it.”
Three weeks before the group set off for Tanzania, he joined a social hiking club, went on three hikes with them, then went to buy climbing gear.
Shaheen, who owns a cellular company in Gqeberha, initially planned to join the climbing team for only a few days of the eight-day summit, just for the experience of having been on the famous mountain.
But once he got there, he was hooked. Nothing was going to stop him – not altitude sickness or the sub-zero nighttime temperature and freezing wind.
“With all the odds against me, I did it,” he says.
SHAHEEN has survived 11 car crashes since he was 18, some more serious than others, he tells us. “Sometimes I was driving, sometimes I was a passenger, and in some cases people drove into me.” One of the more serious accidents happened when he was 21 and a student at Damelin in Gqeberha (then called Port Elizabeth). Shaheen says he was in the passenger seat of a car belonging to his childhood friend when a taxi ran a stop
street and knocked into the left side of their vehicle.
“The car spun around and as it stopped, an oncoming car smashed into the passenger side where I was sitting. My friend flew out of the driver’s side of the car but I was lucky – somehow I emerged unscarred and unscathed. My friend was okay in the end too.”
Over the years Shaheen suffered from kidney stones and needed treatment for the painful removal of nine stones. Doctors eventually told him he needed to change his lifestyle: his body was too acidic, which was contributing to the formation of the kidney stones.
So he altered his diet, decided he needed a goal and set his sights on climbing Everest. A date was arranged for him to join a group on the mountain in 2019 but life had other plans.
“I was driving to work one day and stopped at a pedestrian crossing,” he recalls. “Suddenly two guys crossed the road and pointed guns at me through the window. Then a car closed me off from behind and another pulled up in front and boxed me in.
“Four other guys came from the sides and tried to force me into the back seat but I threw my phone in the opposite direction. They let go of me, watching the phone, and that’s when I ran away.
“It scared me quite a bit. I was under a lot of stress and pressure and having to get back into a car and drive again after that was a lot. It really affected me,” he recalls. He decided to push on with his plan to climb Everest, hoping the distraction of training and the thought of the trip would help him overcome the trauma.
But two days before he was due to leave for base camp, he woke up and instantly realised something was wrong.
“When I looked in the mirror I saw the left side of my face had drooped and I couldn’t move my left arm.”
Doctors diagnosed a transient ischaemic attack, “a form of mini-stroke”, he says. Everest was out of the question. Shaheen, who co-parents daughters Nazmira (15) and Nabiha (11) with his former partner, recovered, but in February this year he had another stroke, this time on his right side.
Doctors also discovered he had a bundle branch block in his heart, which meant the electrical pathways in his heart were being interrupted and blood wasn’t being properly pumped.
He was treated for this and recovered from the stroke, and when the Kilimanjaro opportunity came along he realised he needed to grab it. Life was too unpredictable to let the chance to feel fully alive slip through his fingers.
HE CREDITS his Tanzanian guide, Bakari Rashidi, with helping him to persevere and successfully reach the summit.
Things got rough from day three of the climb, when he suffered from altitude sickness and a bout of diarrhoea. Shaheen says he didn’t eat much for the rest of the climb as he feared becoming seriously ill.
“On the last night on Kilimanjaro, I had a packet of biscuits and cup of black tea and decided to go for it,” he says.
On his way up he recalls a moment when, exhausted, he sat down between some rocks, “just unable to walk anymore”. It was Bakari who forced him to his feet and encouraged him to keep on moving, he says.
“I had a very supportive guide and if it wasn’t for him I don’t know what might’ve happened.”
Doing the climb for a good cause and in memory of a cousin who’d passed away also kept him going as he made his way up the mountain.
“That moment of summiting was overwhelming, especially with my medical condition and the strength left in my body. I just broke down because I couldn’t believe it,” he says.
Would he do it again? “No, not for a million rand,” he says without hesitation.
“It’s a bucket list item ticked off. It’s gruesome, it’s difficult, and I wouldn’t want to put my body through that again. Maybe if my medical condition was a bit different, but I don’t think I’ll do it again.”
So does that mean his Everest plan is also off the table?
“I’m still deciding,” Shaheen says. “I might do it. I’ll see.”
Yet as tough as Kilimanjaro was, he’s grateful and proud he conquered it.
“I believe if you want to do something, you will – it’s more mind over body. Because if your mind says go, your body will too. You need to have the right mindset and be positive,” he adds.
“Somehow, I seem to have survived all these things. The man above has been taking care of me.”
‘IF YOUR MIND SAYS GO, YOUR BODY WILL TOO’