DHAKA: A French multiple sclerosis sufferer Sunday became the first disabled person to skydive over Mount Everest, successfully completing his landing before being taken to hospital as a precaution.

‘I feel very happy. I am exhausted but very happy,’ Marc Kopp said from a hospital bed in Kathmandu where doctors examined him for any injuries sustained during the jump.

The 55-year-old Kopp, who lives in Longwy northeast of Paris, has suffered for more than a decade from multiple sclerosis, the degenerative disease of the nervous system which disrupts the brain’s ability to communicate with the body.

Muscles weaken, lesions emerge on the brain and spinal cord and in the worst cases, patients can lose the ability to speak or walk, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1936 HRS, OCT 27, 2013
RoR/SRS