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From a “sheave” service to Everest, the insane rise of a medical intern

2021-05-26T10:59:25.304Z


At 27, Hélène Drouin became the youngest Frenchwoman to reach the summit of Everest. A feat for this student who has pa


For almost a week now, Hélène Drouin has been pacing in a hotel in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

“I can't get out of it except for compelling reasons.

There is very strict containment here because of the pandemic, ”she explains by phone.

The exile from France is hoping for a very soon resumption of international flights to finally be able to return to the fold.

“You have to be patient,” she blurted, faithful to local fatalism.

Even though she's not yet on the plane, her head is still in the clouds.

On May 11 at 10 am, this internal doctor in anesthesia-resuscitation succeeded in a dream ascent, that of Everest by the Nepalese slope.

Seven years after Mont-Blanc, Hélène Drouin ascended Everest from the Nepalese side.

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Hélène Drouin became the twelfth Frenchwoman to conquer the highest peak on the planet, like the legends Christine Janin or Élisabeth Revol.

Better still, she is the youngest of all to have planted her ice ax there, at only 27 years old.

A record of precocity that she accepts without bulging her chest: “It's a fact, it's true, but what is important is that everyone can achieve their Everest during their life.

"

Nonetheless, this is indeed a feat for this go-getter past “sheave” services and operating theaters at the top of the world, at lightning speed. “I acclimatized very quickly,” she breathes. La Bourguignonne has continued to progress from the base camp at 5,300 m to the summit without needing to go back and forth, these levels usually necessary to get used to the very high altitude.

She benefited from an excellent weather window during a first wave of ascent, which allowed her to avoid the crowds and traffic jams of the second wave.

The final slopes were trying.

“I was thinking about my next steps.

I hardly slept for 36 hours.

»But she did not feel more in danger than on other massifs of the globe.

“Death follows you even in the small mountains,” recalls the young climber.

"It was - 35 ° C but the moment was enjoyable"

Accompanied by a team of Nepalese sherpas - filmed for the occasion by Canadian videographers - she managed to climb to an altitude of 8,849 m alongside a Norwegian client and another Argentinian.

She was the only woman in the whole gang.

“There is no sexism.

I was very well received, I am very grateful to the guides who are all seasoned mountaineers, ”she thanked.

Hélène Drouin spent 10 minutes on top of the world, in clear weather.

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Up there with her oxygen mask, she only stayed 10 minutes despite a clear sky.

“The wind was starting to turn, it was -35 ° C.

But the moment was enjoyable, we had a view of other 8,000, ”she describes.

No question then of getting carried away.

“I had to stay focused, the majority of accidents happen downhill.

"

Raising funds to fight hepatitis B

She didn't conquer the impossible just for her apple.

"My Everest now is to support medical research on hepatitis B. I want to take advantage of my media visibility to get people talking about this cause," she enthuses.

The adventurer intends to raise funds intended to support an Inserm virology laboratory in Lyon (Rhône) where she has completed an internship in the past.

When she is not putting on her crampons, this intern puts on her green nursing tunic.

Since the start of the health crisis, she has been on the front line.

Last year, during the first wave of coronavirus, she had spent several months in the intensive care unit of the Dijon University Hospital (Côte-d'Or), in the middle of oxygen cylinders very different from those which helped her to breathe on the trails of Everest.

In the midst of a health crisis, Hélène Drouin, a 9th year medical student, worked for several months in the intensive care unit at Dijon University Hospital (Côte-d'Or).

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“This period of Covid is very hard.

In sheave, it really makes you think.

Even in the most difficult situations, you have to keep hope, ”she observes.

In November, in order to be able to finance a good part of her expedition to the Himalayas, she left France for a post of interim emergency doctor in Great Britain, still in contact with this damn virus.

In the coming days, the 9th year medical student will join the intensive care unit at Auxerre hospital (Yonne).

What a difference in height for this “Frenchie”, the daughter of an engineer and a veterinarian born in Great Britain where she lived for the first fourteen years of her life.

A nation that is really not famous for its peaks.

“But my mother is from Savoy, so we spent all our summer holidays in the Alps,” she recalls.

To read also Succeed in the ascent of K2 in winter: these climbers dream of making history

At 11, she devoured her first ice cream parlor.

At 20, she climbed the cream of Old Contains: Mont-Blanc.

Three years ago, it gained further height by taming, at 7,134 m, the Lenin peak located on the border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

After sitting on top of the world, she does not intend to stop there.

Between two immersions in hospitals to save lives, she aspires to other mythical peaks of the Himalayas such as Manaslu or Annapurna.

Source: leparis

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