Port Charlotte man survives Mount Everest avalanche

MILWAUKEE (AP) – Two Wisconsin men climbing Mount Everest have survived an avalanche set off by a powerful earthquake in Nepal that has killed more than 2,500 people.

Benjamin Breckheimer, 30, who grew up in Menomonee Falls, was trying to become the first wounded warrior to climb Mount Everest, according to his mother, Mary Lyons. Breckheimer, who now lives in Port Charlotte, Florida, was wounded by a homemade bomb in Afghanistan in 2009.

Lyons, who lives in Menomonee Falls, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that her son called her at 4 a.m. Saturday. Lyons says her son said the situation was “pretty bad” but that he was OK and would call in a few days.

“He didn’t talk for very long, I believe, because other people needed to use the phone also,” Lyons said.

Breckheimer, who left three weeks ago for Nepal, has climbed Mount Elbrus in Russia and attempted climbs of several other peaks, including Mount Rainier and Mount Kilimanjaro, working with Mountain Gurus, an adventure travel company in Seattle.

Andy Land, 52, a hospice nurse from Fond du Lac, and the rest of his climbing team led by International Mountain Guides in Ashford, Washington, all survived the earthquake, the company said Saturday.

“The team called from base camp (around 1 p.m. Nepal time) to let us know there’s been an earthquake, but that everyone on the IMG team (members and Sherpas) in all camps are OK,” Eric Simonson, an IMG partner, posted on the company’s website.

Land has been calling his Mount Everest journey “Climbing for Hospice” and was using the climb to raise money for The HOPE of Wisconsin, a hospice and palliative care organization.

On a website he created for his trip, he wrote that “climbing the world’s tallest mountain evokes the courage, dignity and determination that describe the more than 26,000 patients and their families served by the hospices in Wisconsin.”

The veteran mountaineer told the Journal Sentinel in an interview last month that he hoped to summit Mount Everest in May.

Land has been chronicling his journey on his Climbing for Hospice Facebook page.