Andy Land
A Fond du Lac man, who was climbing Mt. Everest last weekend when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Nepal, thought he was going to die on the mountain.
That admission from 52-year-old Andy Land to his son, after he got in touch with his family following the disaster. Land survived the avalanche that followed the quake, but told his wife Mary Sue that he could feel the rumble as it came crashing down on another camp.
Mary Sue, who is still in Wisconsin, said the experience has been emotionally draining for the family. “It’s really just been kind of an up and down thing,” she said. “You’re happy that he’s safe, but I also know that he’s not off the mountain yet.”
Andy Land, a hospice nurse, was climbing Mt. Everest to help raise awareness and funds for hospice care. Mary Sue said that “clearly God did not want him to summit that mountain, that was not the reason that he sent him there…there is something else that he needed Andy to do.”
Land was climbing with an expedition team, which is now making its way back down the mountain.
KFIZ