Sean Swarner: Two-Time Cancer Survivor Who Climbed Everest

In 1990, as a teenager, Sean Swarner was told he had about two weeks to live. Twelve years later, on 16 May 2002, he stood on the summit of Mount Everest, becoming the first cancer survivor known to reach the top of the world. He went on to climb the Seven Summits, finish the Ironman World Championship and complete the Explorers Grand Slam, all while breathing with only one fully working lung.

Two cancers before twenty

Swarner was born on 2 September 1974 in Ohio and grew up a keen athlete, especially in the pool. At 13 he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. After treatment and remission, he was diagnosed with a second cancer, Askin's sarcoma, and in 1990 doctors gave him two weeks to live. A golf-ball-sized tumour was removed from his lung, leaving him with only one fully functioning lung. He is believed to be the only person ever diagnosed with both cancers.

He survived, graduated from Willard High School in Willard, Ohio, in 1993 and from Westminster College in 1997. He later told ESPN Radio's Bob Valvano that he was more likely to win the lottery four or five times than to survive both diseases.

Everest 2002 and the CancerClimber flag

In 2001 Sean and his brother founded the CancerClimber Association to raise cancer awareness and money for research and to inspire people affected by the disease. On Everest he carried a flag covered with the names of people touched by cancer, turning a personal summit into a shared one. He reached the top on 16 May 2002, and the CancerClimber flag appears in his summit photographs from later climbs too.

The Seven Summits and the Ironman

After Everest, Swarner set out to climb the highest mountain on every continent, the Seven Summits, finishing with Denali in Alaska in 2007. Kilimanjaro's Uhuru Peak, pictured above with its famous signboard, is the African summit on the list. In 2007 ESPN and the Jimmy V Foundation gave him their Don't Ever Give Up Award.

He then switched from mountains to triathlon. On 11 October 2008 he finished the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, in 11 hours, 44 minutes and 15 seconds.

Completing the Explorers Grand Slam

The Explorers Grand Slam adds both geographic poles to the Seven Summits. Swarner completed it in April 2017 with a trek of about 70 miles over more than a week to the North Pole, joining a club that, according to Denver7, numbered only 56 people at the time. He tells the full story in his book Keep Climbing, which follows him from his near-death experience to the top of the world.

His message to people facing cancer is to find their own summit, whatever that is. For many, it is simply the next step.

More mountain stories

Read about The Tutu Project’s practical support work or compare the distinction between major mountain summits.

• Everest’s Mountain Workers: The Sherpa’s Story
• The Khumbu Icefall through Theodore Fairhurst’s Helmet Camera
• K2: A Karakoram Mountain Film with Music by Hip de Bop
• Twenty-Three Waterfall Scenes: Winter Ice and a Mineral Lookalike
• Winter Climbing in Scotland with Ines Papert
• The President Sequoia in a 126-Frame Portrait

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