Frenchman With MS Falls From the Top of the World

Marc Kopp is from France and he was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis in 2001 – the same year I was diagnosed with MS.  Monsieur Kopp fell last week.  He fell out of an aircraft, from 32,800 feet (nearly 10,000 meters) over Mount Everest…and he intended to do it. All you have to do is type “Frenchman MS Skydive Everest” into your favorite search engine and you’ll have pages of entries to read.  As the press release must have been rather short, all of the pages say pretty much the same thing.  I’ll go ‘report’, therefore, on the event but simply pick my jaw up off my desk and react. WOW! I am often impressed by the things that people with MS can do – running, cycling, mountain climbing, body building; all feats of great strength and endurance.  I usually feel a bit disconnected from some of these great men and women of MS, however, because I was never in that good a shape when I was in good shape. I did, however, do a bit of skydiving in my younger, “healthier” days.  I know a little bit about it and the sport isn’t just falling out of a plane.  Add into it that Kopp spends most of his time in a wheelchair, had to ride up the mountain on horseback for several days just to get to the launch point and is the first person with any disability to pull off this jump, and I am impressed. When he’s not tandem jumping onto the tallest mountain in the world, he volunteers as a support group leader for others in his town who live with ...
Source: Life with MS - Category: Other Conditions Authors: Tags: MS multiple sclerosis awareness Living with MS world MS day Source Type: blogs