~ First Female Para to Summit Kilimanjaro
By Dawn Ziegler
“Sports is my life,” Erica Davis affirmed. As a 29 year old, born and raised in Lodi, California, she grew up in the middle of two brothers who taught her how to be tough, competitive and positive. “I have always been a tomboy,” she continued. Starting as early as the fourth grade with her first 5K running race, Erica not only took part in, but excelled in sports of all kinds… flag football, volleyball, basketball, and softball (to name a few), often being named as MVP.
After earning her degree in Physical Education from Pacific Union College, Erica went on to teach high school PE in Hawaii. That’s where she got the itch for triathlons. She started training and competed in her first Tri in October, 2005, where she took 6th in her division. Being the thrill seeker that she was, she had her sights set on competing in the Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) one day. It was during that time that Erica was accepted into the Masters Program at Sacramento State University in Kinesiology for Strength and Conditioning. There was no way for her to know that all that training would prepare her for an unforeseen journey.
Later that year on December 27th, Erica woke up with the worst backache she had ever had. Being tough-minded, though, she brushed it off as soreness from the previous day’s workout. Three days later, the pain turned into tingling that spread down throughout her legs. That is when she knew something was wrong. After six hours in the ER, she left with a prescription for muscle spasms. That evening, Erica got up to find she was no longer able to support her weight on her legs and had to crawl to get to the bathroom. On December 31st, Erica mustered up enough strength to walk to the couch from the stairs while holding on to walls and door frames. That was the last day she had walked, yet she remains hopeful it will not be her last!
Erica was diagnosed with a Cavernous Hemangioma, an abnormal cluster of blood vessels which isn’t that uncommon and usually doesn’t have such devastating results. However, in Erica’s case (one in every 5 million), the cluster of vessels ruptured, and a small droplet of blood made its way into her spinal column, causing inflammation to her spinal cord. The pressure on her spine from the swelling damaged the nerves, paralyzing Erica from below her chest down.
It would be understandable if Erica felt resentful about the misdiagnosis when she first went to the ER, or that she was one of the rare statistics that this happened to, but that just wasn’t in Erica’s character. Certainly, the realization of having her life as an athlete, which defined much of who she was, taken away could have put her in a spin of depression. Her reaction to the injury, though, would be what exposed who she was. “I didn’t want any negativity present in my hospital room,” Erica explained. “I grew up learning to be tough and positive… I don’t like the word can’t! This is a new chapter in my life and I need to focus on what’s next!”
“Erica would save her tears for the evenings in the hospital when she was alone, then pull herself together to meet the challenges of the next day.”
A few weeks after returning home, Erica was introduced to a man who was an avid hand cyclist. He rekindled her passion for exercise and athletics. Hand cycling became the first of about 20 adapted sports that she would explore, some of which she pursued in the competitive arena in the years to follow. In January 2007, Erica and her mom moved into a senior citizen mobile home park in Carlsbad, California (where her dad would commute to and often visit), to be closer to the rehab facility so she could continue with a more intensive therapy and exercise regimen.
In the summer of 2009, Derek Gates went to the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) with his idea to document the first paraplegic woman to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. As crazy as the idea sounded, the intent was to send a message to the world that there would be no limit to the power of the human spirit. When thinking of who could possibly accept the challenge for such an enormous task, one name came up… Erica Davis!
By that time, Erica was back heavy into training for hand cycling and triathlons. She was already a member of the CAF which is a program developed in 1993 to help support challenged athletes with the cost of equipment and other expenses related to athletic goals. She trained six days a week, swimming, biking, pushing a race wheelchair, and other forms of exercise. When Erica got into competitive racing, the CAF became one of her sponsors.
Finding a purpose…
“I have two jobs now, training and recovery,” Erica said, “And it’s my job to be out there showing both able-bodied and the newly injured that anything you want to do you can do!” So when she was approached by CAF to be the first woman to wheel to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, she didn’t hesitate to say, “Yes!”
“After I said ‘yes,’ I had to think about what I had gotten into,” Erica admitted. “There were only three and a half months to train (before the scheduled climb at the end of January 2010).” She wasn’t concerned about her physical fitness, but there were many things that could go wrong with a climb of this magnitude… exhaustion, altitude sickness, dehydration, and hypothermia, for example. “You never know what can happen. Things can happen to anyone (on a climb),” Erica acknowledged. “I was especially concerned about altitude sickness and getting too cold. But I never thought of not making it. It was going to be fun and hard.”
And she had a message to deliver, “I wanted all people to know that they can accomplish anything they set their mind to! Something like this brings out more in you than what you thought you had inside.”
Soon after she finished with the cycling season in the fall of 2009, Erica put her bike away and focused her entire existence on making history by doing the unimaginable…climbing Kilimanjaro.
[Much of her training regimen for the climb was designed by the C.H.E.K. Institute (owners of the documentary), a worldwide philosophy on life coaching and personal training which involves a holistic body-mind health approach to performance and overall well-being.] – photo caption
Although there are good hiking trails near Carlsbad, there are no mountains to practice on. Erica’s weekly schedule consisted of pushing her chair up and down street hills, hiking with her new climb team on dirt trails, stretching, core strength training in the gym, continuing with her home program, getting educated on nutrition and learning the science of the mind’s performance during an ascent. (This last piece to her training would prove to be probably the most valuable to the team as a whole as the effects of the climb began taking toll on their physical ability to function.)
Another one of Erica’s sponsors for this endeavor was Colours Wheelchairs. They designed a chair specifically for Erica and her team so they could push, pull, and at times lift her over rocks and boulders. Tether ropes and push bars would be used on terrain over which Erica was able to maneuver by herself. And when mountain trails became impassable, modified bars that slide through the arm rests allowed her porters to carry her in the chair.
This wheelchair also came equipped with Magic Wheels to give Erica more power while pushing. With a 2:1 geared hub, they allow the user to go up inclines by exerting half the effort. To keep her secure in the chair while climbing, she used a seatbelt around her waist and a strap that went around her ankles. She also had her regular manual chair brought along so she could use it while in camp.
Erica and her team arrived in Tanzania, Africa, after dark on January 24, 2010. Excitement was in the air and they could hardly wait until daybreak to get their first real glimpses of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak and the tallest free standing mountain in the world.
Her team consisted of eight people: Derek Gates, executive producer and master mind of the project, Chris Theibert and Matt Peters from Captured Life Productions who were in charge of filming the documentary, Philip Chester, the photographer, Zach Ralphs, a rep from Overstock.com which was another sponsor for this trek, Penny Crozier, CEO of the C.H.E.K. Institute, Tara Butcher, a below the knee amputee and fellow female challenged athlete, and Erica herself, the first female para attempting to summit Kilimanjaro.
Accompanying them was the Thompson Safari Team. This team of three guides and an entourage of 33 porters were a vital component to the climb. Not only were they responsible for carrying all the equipment (tents, supplies, food, wheelchair, tires, etc.) and setting up and taking down camp each day, but they were there to assist Erica with the climb when the terrain got really tough. The whole thing would’ve been impossible without them!
After spending one day in Tanzania, the next morning they would strike out for the mountain. “We’re going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro,” Erica said under her breath. It finally felt real to her. This was actually happening!
Not only was this a life changing adventure, but it would be a chance to witness some of the rare beauties of Africa. “Throughout the climb, we covered five different terrains,” Erica recalled. Day one started out in the rainforests of northeastern Tanzania. The sun shone brightly through the canopy of trees and monkeys hustled around overhead. Temps rose above 80 degrees when they started. The trails that wound through the thick forest were meant for hiking, not wheeling, but it was passable with some assistance from her team. This is what they all trained for. This is what they expected in the days to come.
Seven to nine hours a day for the first two days, they hiked. “I was up between 4:30 and 5:30 AM everyday (an hour before the others so I could do my needed cares to get ready for the day),” Erica shares, “We would get to bed around 8:00 and 10:00 PM at night. We were completely exhausted!” As they approached the end of day two, Erica took notice of the view, “I can see the floor of Africa,” appreciating how far she’d already come while camp was being set up.
Even though it was only day two, Erica and her team were already feeling the effects of the altitude. Breathing was noticeably harder and nausea was creeping in (although Erica recalls the first signs of sickness in her stomach on day four around 13,000 feet). “It was important to bring along snacks we liked to make it easier to force yourself to keep eating. ‘Erica’s bag of Halloween candy’ is what my team called my stash of goodies,” Erica remembers. “It was also crucial to drink much more water than you normally would, and you know how much people with SCI like to drink water,” she voiced sarcastically. “Fortunately, we were the only travel company on the mountain to bring a portable bathroom which the porters would set up and take down every day.”
The camps provided the bare necessities for the team while on the mountain. There was no electricity, heat or running water. They used wet wipes to get as much of the grime and dirt off as possible, and the porters brought them warm water in the evenings. “The first and fourth nights we were all in the same room on bunk beds. But on nights two and three we stayed three to four people in a hut which also housed our clothes, my wheelchairs, video and camera equipment, and supplies. And on the fifth and six nights we were two to a tent,” Erica describes. “The food, though, was quite surprising for up that high on the mountain. There was fresh fruit every day.”
The third day of the climb was a day of rest, a day to acclimate to the elevation before going on. “It was becoming more important emotionally to be there for each other,” Erica clarified as she described how the team bonded through physical and mental hardships. “We would tell jokes, play games, sing songs, anything to get your mind off the pain. But as it became harder to breath, we would talk less just to save our energy. I would even give my team members back rubs at camp because the terrain was getting more difficult to get my wheelchair through and I was relying more on them to push, pull and carry me.”
As they ascended, the scenery changed from lush foliage and wildlife to drier, tundra and alpine desert like conditions. It got colder, with more rocks and boulders showing up in their path. Eventually, they’d face snow and glaciers as they neared the summit, and as the elevation increased, the falling temps exerted its power. “We started out in tanks and shorts and ended up with every layer of clothing we brought,” Erica explained, “That made the going really tough.”
The next couple of days put Erica, her chair, and her team through a true test of strength. The alpine desert-like terrain gave way to the steepest and narrowest trails they had yet to contend with, and the team was at a point where they were no longer able to assist Erica. The porters had to take over. “I had to put a lot of trust in people I didn’t know,” she went on, “It was more draining emotionally because I didn’t have my team around me and I only 20-30 words of Swahili…so it was very hard for me.”
Headaches, nausea, and complete exhaustion began to take hold of each member of Erica’s team. Everyone moved slower, each step being thought out before being carefully placed. “They say about 60% of the people who attempt to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro actually make it to the summit, and by this point we had already seen four people being carried down on stretchers. That was an intimidating feeling,” she confessed. “I had to (continue). You’re up there on the side of a mountain…when you are that far, there is only one direction to go and that is up.”
And at the end of day five, they waited, tired and cold, for the porters to set up the tents which would be their living quarters for the night. They had to camp across the rocky slope of the mountain. (This was not Erica’s favorite camp to say the least.)
The push to the summit…
The dawn of day six was spectacular. It also shed light on the most challenging day of hiking. The camp stirred at 6:30 AM with temps plunging into the single digits. “At this point I was cold all the time,” Erica made clear. “I had on almost every piece of clothing I brought and I still felt the cold ache in my bones. Every time we stopped, one of my team members had to sit on my lap to help keep me warm.”
After 11 hours of arduous climbing, they finally reached the camp that would be their last stop before attempting to summit the next morning. But it was still an hour before sunset and the team began to debate whether they could continue on or not. “We’re doing it!” Erica said with a rush of excitement. And with a renewed surge of adrenaline, the team pressed on.
Sometime around 5:30 PM on January 31, 2010, Erica Davis made history as the first paraplegic woman to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, along with her fellow challenged athlete, Tara Butcher. “My team carried me out of my chair to the point of summit to take pictures near the celebrated summit sign,” Erica boasted, “and warmth filled us as the realization of what we accomplished surged through our tired and freezing bodies.”
They relished the moments as they watched the sun set from the summit of Kilimanjaro. “It was awe-inspiring!” Erica shared, “Being a Christian and looking around at the beauty God had created…here at the roof of Africa.”
There was only one small problem now. The climb wasn’t over. The sun had just set and they had to get back down to camp, in the dark, with temps falling well below zero. “I cried from the intense pain of being so cold,” Erica remembered. “When we reached camp, I went straight to my sleeping bag without dinner. It was the sickest I had felt yet.”
The next morning, Erica woke up with the worst headache she had ever had, “The first couple of hours of the climb down, I was not quite with it because of the pain in my head. But in a sense my job was done…all I needed to do now was ‘hang on’ and let the porters do the work.” The way down was on a different trail than the one they came up on. And when they reached the bottom, a day and a half later, the native porters bid their farewell with a celebration song and dance for the team. “The porters were what made this climb possible, and we couldn’t have done it without them.”
This project has been made into a documentary titled Through the Roof by Captured Life Productions. Proceeds benefit the Challenged Athletes Foundation. For more information about the documentary, go to: http://www.throughtheroofmovie.com/ .
What’s next for Erica:
Erica is busy training for a number of races coming up this fall. She will be competing in a number of triathlons, a half marathon, and the Marine Corp Marathon. Also this fall, she is participating in a 4.5 hour krankcycle session at Tour de Cove for CAF, and training to compete in wheelchair ballroom dancing. She has her sights set on making it to the Paralympics in ballroom dancing, handcycling, or triathlons in the years to come. This past July she was given the opportunity to compete with some of the USA Wheelchair Curling Team in Cape Cod which has sparked an interest for her. Also, on August 20 of this year, she rappelled off a 33-story building for a fundraising event for Kids Included Together. To get updates on future adventures or to support Erica, visit her site at: http://gowitherica.com/.
