Paul Deegan is on top of the world.  He’s just climbed Mt. Everest, reached the world’s highest point, and has a decision to make.

He, like the rest of his climbing group, could choose to climb atop the summit.  Instead, he kneels.  “I decided I didn’t want to stand on the summit.  I wanted to find a way to pay my respect to Everest.  I just reached out and touched the survey marker, not the snow on the actual summit.  I wanted to bow down to show my humility and respect,” Deegan said.

Deegan visited JC on Sept. 9 for the summer reading assembly on Jon Krakauer’s novel “Into Thin Air” about climbing Mt Everest.  Deegan spoke to the student body, as well as faculty and staff, about his life in relation to summiting Everest in 2004.

Telling his life story in chronological order, Deegan began by talking about a car crash which threw him out of the back window when he was 15 years old.  When a policeman told him that he should’ve died in the accident, he vowed to make every day a great day from then on.

At 17, Deegan led a group of volunteers from England in a trash pick-up expedition at the foot of Everest.  This sparked his interest in mountain climbing.

In 1996, Deegan attempted to summit Everest.  He made it to the third camp before he was forced back by a wind storm.  Although he didn’t know it at the time, that same windstorm made that season the deadliest spring in Everest’s history.  He was forced to retreat to the bottom of the mountain, where he promised himself that he would never attempt to climb Everest again.

Eight years later, he broke that promise and summited.  This was 15 years after his first attempt to climb Everest.

Deegan now gives lectures about his experiences all over the world.  He is an award-winning author and donates at least one percent of income of his book [M1] and lecturing to charitable causes.

Students such as junior Mary Kate Luft and sophomore Travis Nelson enjoyed Deegan’s presentation.   “He had great energy and was very good at telling his story in an interesting and humorous way,” Luft said.

“It was definitely a great experience to hear Paul Deegan speak to us.  I believe that a summer reading program should be reinforced with something such as a firsthand account.  It was interesting to hear Deegan speak of his unique experiences, the dangers of what he did, and the pleasure and joy it brought to him,” Nelson said.

Deegan is speaking on Oct. 1 at the Colonial Theater in Philadelphia.  For more details, you can visit http://www.phoenixvilleadventure.com/.

Martha Schick is a Managing Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.