Deafblind woman could become first to summit Everest, with a U of T researcher’s aid

RCI / Alina Snisarenko (new window) · CBC News ·

When Karolina Pakėnaitė trekked to the Mount Everest base camp three years ago, she met a group of climbers who were aiming to become the first deaf climbers to summit its peak.

Pakėnaitė, who is deafblind because she has Usher syndrome — a genetic condition that causes hearing and vision loss — realized that no deafblind person had ever summited the mountain.

“I started to ask myself, what if? I never imagined myself summiting Everest, but that question never left me to this day”, she told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning Wednesday.

“That question changed everything.”…

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