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Miracle Heart Summit Matterhorn
21:03 p.m. EDT Aug 26, 2003
News dispatched straight from the summit of Matterhorn has it that heart transplant survivor Kelly Perkins and her husband Craig have reached the top.
With them were Tim Brown, Michael Brown, and Jean Pavillard.
The Matterhorn, dubbed by early climbers "the awful mountain" is located in the Alps and has a distinctive chiseled pyramid reaching 4,478 m (14,693 ft); its four faces steep and avalanche prone leaving only small amounts of snow and ice clinging to them. It was first successfully summited in 1865; almost a century later than Mont Blanc.
Michael Brown has filmed Kelly and Craig's ascent. His credits include work as the Director of Photography for the Global Extremes challenge on Mount Everest this past spring and his documentary of blind climber Erik Weihenmayer’s historic ascent of Mount Everest in “Farther Than the Eye Can See".
Said Michael earlier of Kelly's climb: "Climbing the Matterhorn is difficult. It is intimidating for experienced mountaineers. To attempt the climb with a transplanted heart is extraordinary.”
Several years ago, a rare virus left Kelly dying with congestive heart failure. She received a life-saving transplant in 1995 and, just 10 months after her surgery, began her post-transplant climbs. Since 1996, she has climbed 8,842-foot Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt Fuji where, as a tribute, Craig brought the ashes of Kelly's heart donor.
Because her nerves were severed in the transplant procedure, Kelly's heart is not capable of communicating with the brain in the same way as her original heart. It is unable signal her heart to beat faster and take in the appropriate level oxygenated blood when exercising. Eventually, adrenaline kicks in to compensate, however, the delay makes climbing a more difficult challenge.
Image of Kelly and Craig courtesy of Kelly & Craig.
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