Aviad Sido during the climb of Mount Everest
(Video: Aviad Sido)
Aviad Sido is only 26 years old, but he has already managed to reach the highest peak in the world, Mount Everest, and break a record in the past month. He is the youngest Israeli to climb Everest and one of the few Israelis to achieve this feat. However, the glory came with a price, as currently there are concerns at Hadassah Medical Center that it may cost him his hand fingers.
Read More:
Sido embarked on an international expedition that included three other members from Macedonia, Greece, and Australia. About a week ago, he arrived at the hospital in Jerusalem with his right hand in danger after being injured during the journey. Sido actually descended from the summit using only his left hand, and he also lost a team member along the way in a snowstorm.
Sido dedicated his achievement at the summit to his late mother, who passed away last year from cancer. He carried her picture with him and brought it to the top of the mountain. "I'm sure she would have been very proud of me," he said. "She wanted me to undertake this journey."
Sido grew up in the communal settlement of Adi in the Jezreel Valley, and from a young age, he was drawn to everything related to extreme sports, trips, and challenges. "Climbing Everest was a childhood dream," he shared in an interview with Ynet.
A few years ago, he enlisted in the elite special forces Shaldag Unit of the Israeli Air Force and later became an officer. Recently, he was discharged from the army after serving as a platoon deputy commander, following a difficult year dealing with the loss of his mother and the end of a relationship. "My good friends took me on a trip abroad, and we talked about a trip after the army and how I would get out of the situation I was in," he recounted. That's when Sido decided to fulfill his childhood dream and entered a rigorous training regime, including "reaching the best physical fitness I had ever been in."
Sido indeed climbed the mountain, and when he reached the summit, he was exhausted. "Now the mission was to return home safely," he said. "Eighty percent of accidents happen on the way down, also because the adrenaline wears off." Half an hour before reaching the summit, Sido realized he had a problem with his right hand.
At first, he thought it was a stone that fell on his hand and waited to reach a less cold place to remove his glove and inspect it himself. "On the way back, we were all exhausted," he says. "Jason, the Australian friend, was slightly more exhausted than all of us, and at this stage, we split up, and each of us descended with our own guide. At that point, my right hand was not functioning. I arrived first at Everest Camp 4, where we were supposed to rest and gather strength to descend to Everest Camp 2, which is Everest Base Camp because there's a doctor or a helicopter that can rescue you.
"Jason, the Australian friend, was my tent partner. Two hours after I arrived at Camp 4, Zlatko from Macedonia and Marius from Greece arrived. We got there, and they told me that Jason was behind us and would arrive in a few hours. A sort of snowstorm hit Camp 4. There was a lot of uncertainty about Jason; he didn't return throughout the night, and we didn't know what was happened to him. I thought maybe he continued to descend to Camp 2. In the morning, we learned that his guide tried to fight for his life, but he died on the way back. He suffered from a lack of oxygen to the brain, and the guides tried to bring him medication and oxygen, but it didn't help. In the end, he died there on the mountain."
With this news that their friend's body remained on the mountain, the team began to descend to Camp 2, while Sido's hand was not functioning. "We reached Camp 2, where for the first time, a doctor saw me," he said. "A day later, a helicopter evacuated me to Kathmandu for further medical treatment, but we understood that I wouldn't receive proper medical care there. I spoke with my family, and we decided to seek medical treatment at Hadassah."
The next day, Sido landed in Israel and went directly to the plastic surgery department at Hadassah, where specialists in the burns unit are operating to treat the severe injuries to his fingers. The damage to Sido's hand, apparently, is in four fingers of his right hand. "I can still move them a bit," he says. "There is a concern of amputation of one of the fingers."
Despite the injury, Sido feels that he has fulfilled a dream. He even wrote a piece called A Deep Dive into a High Summit, which is like a diary of the challenging journey he went through. Sido tells Ynet that he has no regrets. According to him, "It's an incredible story for me. I accomplished my goal. I fulfilled a dream even if it seemed impossible. Only a few supported me, but I thought a lot about my mother, and this longing accompanied me all the way. In the mountains, for example, you experience dreams in a very tangible way. They are very vivid. Throughout the journey, the dreams were about her and home. The last thing my mother would want is for me to risk my life, but she would want us to be there for ourselves. That I would be happy and take care of myself."
"My mother was happy to hear that I followed my dream after she passed away, and I'm sure she would have been very proud of me," he says. "Now I want to go back to my life and be with my father. The concern now is to get healthy. This whole journey is about an important point, where you can emerge from a deep pit to a high place. Our way to heal and rise up is by choosing challenges and setting goals. I would like my journey to inspire those who are in a difficult situation, to let them know that it is possible to overcome it."