Man With MS Makes Record Everest Leap

A Frenchman with multiple sclerosis says he is exhausted, bruised, but very happy after becoming the first disabled man to skydive over Mount Everest. Marc Kopp, 55, swapped his wheelchair for a horse for the long journey to a Himalayan airstrip before jumping out of a helicopter at 38,000 feet, successfully landing at a platform on the side of the world's highest mountain. A helicopter took him back to hospital afterward as a precaution but he did not sustain any injuries in the jump.

Kopp—who describes himself as "probably a little crazy"—dived in tandem with champion skydiver Mario Gervasi. He met Gervasi at an event this summer and was offered the chance to jump over Everest after soccer star Zinedine Zidane pulled out because of a scheduling clash. Kopp, who started a support group for other MS sufferers after he was diagnosed in 2001, says he hopes the skydive will send "a message of hope to other people with the disease," RFI reports. (More Mount Everest stories.)