26 January 2016 - British explorer dies crossing Antarctic
British explorer Henry Worsley dies crossing Antarctic, 30 miles short of goal
British explorer Henry Worsley has died attempting to be the first person to cross the Antarctic unaided, in an epic charity mission inspired by Ernest Shackleton.
The 55-year-old former British Army officer died after being airlifted to a hospital in Punta Arenas, Chile, suffering severe exhaustion and dehydration.
The father-of-two was found to have bacterial peritonitis (a bacterial infection in the abdomen), after having trekked around 913 miles unaided across the South Pole -- just 30 miles short of his end goal.
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Last message
Rebecca Perring and Zoie O'Brien (Express, 25/01/2016)
As he battled the bitter cold, he wrote a poignant final message to his followers, it has emerged.
In the message posted to his website on Friday, day 70 of the expedition, the former Army officer said he had lost the ability to "slide one ski in front of the other".
Attempted route
Paul Rose (The Telegraph, 25/01/2016)
In Antarctica, making the slightest mistake can put your life at risk. It is an unforgiving place. Colder than cold, bleak, a vast wasteland of iciness, its deadliness stretches for thousands of miles.
True, it has been explored and mapped. Yet the minute you step out of your modern base, regardless of all your hi-tech equipment, you’re in exactly the same Antarctica that Scott and Shackleton travelled in. It’s remote and it is hostile.
That’s why Henry Worsley’s attempt to follow in Shackleton’s footsteps and travel across the Antarctic alone, pulling his own supplies, was so impressive. He was a formidable explorer: well-organised, determined and incredibly powerful – not one of those people who just goes off with a dream and not much of a plan. His was a good expedition, and I followed him all the way. It looked as if he was cruising it and sometimes he was even going like the clappers.
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Tributes
Esther Addley (The Guardian, 25/01/2016)
“My journey is at an end,” the British explorer Henry Worsley said in an emotional dispatch to his website on Friday. “I have run out of time and endurance [through] a simple, sheer inability to slide one ski in front of the other.”
After trekking alone for 70 days and more than 900 miles across Antarctica to within an agonising 30 miles of his destination, Worsley knew he was too weak to achieve his goal of becoming the first man to cross the continent unaided, and called for rescue.
Tragically the 55-year-old was too late. After being flown to a hospital in southern Chile, Worsley died on Sunday from complete organ failure, his wife, Joanna, announced “with heartbroken sadness” on Monday. He had been given urgent treatment for extreme dehydration and exhaustion before undergoing surgery for bacterial peritonitis, an infection of the lining of the intestine.
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26 January 2016 - British explorer dies crossing Antarctic, La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), janvier 2016. Consulté le 26/12/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2016/26-january-2016-british-explorer-dies-crossing-antarctic