Irish Everest climber sent tragic last text to pregnant wife saying he'd 'done it' hours before falling to his death
An Irish climber who fell to his death while descending from the peak of Mount Everest had sent a text to his pregnant wife from the summit saying he had 'done it'.
Hours after sending the text message, 39-year-old Seamus Lawless fell from the 27,000-ft high 'balcony' area of the mountain in the early hours of last Thursday.
Eventually, the guides called off their search for the climber who was an assistant professor at the School of Computer Science at Trinity College, Dublin. Lawless' death follows the death of eleven other climbers who died after treacherous weather cut the climbing window.
This resulted in mountaineers waiting in long queues, risking exhaustion as well as running out of oxygen. Thousands of people gathered at the Holy Redeemer Church, in Bray, Co Wicklow to pay tribute to Lawless.
Parish priest Fr Michael O'Kelly shared during the service that Lawless had sent a final text to his wife Pamela from the summit saying he was coming home.
As reported by The Sun, the crowds were told how Lawless had left an "imprint on everyone" and that it was "fitting that his final resting place should be on top of the world." Lawless was part of a group of eight climbers which was attempting to climb the mountain. Sherpas who were with the expedition told the Himalayan Times that the other climbers had descended to the mountain's Camp IV but Lawless' fate was not known.
Lawless had taken time off from his post at the Trinity College in order to pursue his dream of conquering the world's highest peak. Before leaving, Lawless said in a newspaper interview, "I turn 40 in July. My friends are joking that climbing Everest is my mid-life crisis."
Recently, a Canadian filmmaker Elia Saikaly shared an eerie picture of Everest climbers stepping over a dead body while queueing for the summit. The picture shows a long line of climbers stepping over a rope attached to a freezing corpse which hangs around 9,000 meters above sea level. He captioned the picture, "Here we all were, chasing a dream and beneath our very feet, there was a lifeless soul. Is this what Everest has become?"
As reported by DailyMail, Saikaly who was filming four Arab women shared, "I cannot believe what I saw up there. Death. Carnage. Chaos. Lineups. Dead bodies on the route and in tents at camp 4. People who I tried to turn back ended up dying. People being dragged down. Walking over bodies. Everything you read in the sensational headlines all played out on our summit night."