A 15-year-old boy with Down Syndrome named Eli recently climbed up to the top of Mount Everest with his father, Justin, becoming the first person with Down Syndrome to reach the Nepal base of the famed mountain. He and his father attempted and achieved the feat as a team effort in order to raise awareness for The Elisha Foundation, a religious group that ministers to families of people with special needs.
While a 10-day, 70-mile hike in less than ideal conditions seems as if it would be difficult for anyone, and especially a teen with special needs, Eli’s father actually told HLN Eli crushed the hike, having more stamina and fervor to move forward than any of the other hikers in their group.
“We monitored his oxygen saturation levels as we went up and his were consistently and significantly higher than everyone else’s to where he was actually leading us on the trail. We were the ones feeling our own sense of disability just in dealing with the elevation…it was no big deal to him; the rest of us were just sucking wind.”
Doctors were consulted and Eli was cleared before he and Justin performed the hike, and those teen genes really seemed to come in handy. Additionally, Justin stressed the reason he and his son accomplished the long hike was so that people can understand “a disability is not a limitation” and so that others can go forth and attempt other great things like the Everest hike.
As if Eli’s story isn’t grand enough, if you are looking for some other incredible stories today, check out this man with Down Syndrome who owns his own restaurant or watch a 26-year-old’s reaction to hearing for the very first time. If the Internet is good for anything, it’s this sort of inspiring stuff.
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