It was Linville’s third attempt at summiting the 29,000-foot peak. An avalanche thwarted his first try, in 2014, and in 2015 a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that caused widespread damage throughout the region canceled that year’s climbing season.
Linville was joined on the summit by a small video crew and a team of sherpas. According to the Hero Project’s announcement, Linville’s team was the first group on the summit during the 2016 climbing season. They arrived at Everest base camp in mid-April and began pushing toward the summit from a secondary camp on Wednesday. The team is now descending the mountain.
While Linville is the first combat-wounded amputee to summit the mountain, Mark Inglis, a New Zealand native, was the first amputee to scale the storied peak, in 2006.
Linville joined the Marines in 2006 as an infantryman and deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment — known as the 3/5 “Darkhorse” battalion — in 2007, according to a biography on the Heroes Project website. Upon his return he volunteered for explosive-ordnance disposal training and upon his certification as an EOD technician deployed to Afghanistan. He spent time in the volatile city of Marja before switching to a team in the bomb-riddled district of Sangin.
On Jan. 20, 2011, Linville and his fellow technicians were investigating a roadside-bomb detonation when, during a sweep of the area, Linville triggered another bomb. The device was probably laid to hit the Marines who were responding to the initial explosion. Linville’s right foot and hand were riddled with shrapnel, and after years of surgery and rehab his foot was amputated in 2013.
12:30 pm May 19, 2016 Nepali time. The Heroes Project was the first team to reach the summit from the Tibet northface...
Posted by The Heroes Project on Friday, May 20, 2016
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