An n man has died just moments away from completing a difficult climb of one of the world’s most famous mountains during a dream post-retirement trip.
The former head of printing for the Canberra Times and n Community Media (ACM), Jon Clarke, died from altitude sickness just 100m from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, on February 26.
Mr Clarke had recently retired in 2021 and saw the journey to Africa’s highest peak as the ‘trip of a lifetime’ to celebrate his 60th birthday.
His family lost contact with him the day prior to his death and were waiting to hear from him for several days before receiving the heartbreaking news.
They were told that despite being severely ill, Mr Clarke begged the others in his group to get him ‘to the top’ but they were eventually forced to descend to try and save his life.
Recently retired ‘newspaper man’ Jon Clarke (pictured with wife Jenene) died from altitude sickness on Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro
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Mr Clarke was on the seventh day of the climb when he started feeling the effects of altitude sickness.
His eldest son, Lewis, said he had trained for six months before the trip and walked for four hours a day to remain fit.
Altitude sickness occurs when a body isn’t acclimated to lower levels of oxygen at great heights and develops faster if a climber doesn’t slow down to regulate.
The likeliness of severe altitude sickness grows at heights of over 3,000 metres, placing Mr Clarke in harm’s way when he was just below the Kilimanjaro’s height of 5,895metres.
Symptoms of the sickness include breathlessness, heart palpitations, fluid in the lungs and blue-tinged skin and nails due to lack of oxygen.
Despite the threat of altitude sickness, around 30,000 to 50,000 people climb to Mount Kilimanjaro’s summit every year.
Of those that attempt the climb, only three to 10 people die on the mountain each year.
Lewis said his dad died doing what he loved, travelling.
‘I hope he was enjoying it. He trained very hard for the walk, and I think he was excited to show us pictures when he got back,’ he told the Canberra Times.
Former colleagues of Mr Clarke remembered him walking throughout his breaks at work as he pondered his next travel destination.
Mr Clarke was on the ‘trip of a lifetime’ when he succumbed to altitude sickness just 100m from the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro (pictured)
He and his wife of 31-years, Jenene, were inspired globetrotters having travelled together to China, Vietnam, Fiji, Cambodia and Hawaii.
He was remembered for his friendly demeanour, with his family maintaining a running joke that he could strike up a conversation with anyone no matter where he was in the world.
n Community Media’s editorial director, Rod Quinn, remembered Mr Clarke as ‘one of the smartest, most respected and most professional people I have worked with in the industry’.
‘He was an active and commonsense voice in the way we ran the business. If he could do anything to help us get the newspaper out, he would do it,’ Mr Quinn told the Canberra Times.
‘As well as all that, he was a great bloke.’