Sunnyvale hiker among 4 Americans dead on Mount Everest
SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Two Bay Area men hiking the Himalayas are among the thousands who died in a massive earthquake that struck Nepal on Saturday.
Four U.S citizens were killed in the Mt. Everest base camp area, which was hit by a series of avalanches caused by the 7.8-magnitude quake, U.S. State Department officials said Monday. The death toll from the quake is estimated to be at least 4,600.
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The State Department has received hundreds of calls inquiring about possibly missing family members, but so far has confirmed only the four deaths.
On Monday, the department identified Vinh Truong, of Sunnyvale, as one of the victims. On Sunday, Google identified Dan Fredinburg, an employee working on privacy at the company's Mountain View headquarters, as another of the Americans killed.
A friend of Truong's for a decade, Michelle Fennessy, said Tuesday he was an avid outdoorsman who dreamed of hiking the Himalayas.
"I'm almost envisioning him getting up on that mountain at base camp at awe of himself that he actually made it," Fennessy said.
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The two met at the University of Chicago, where Fennessy was working on a Ph.D. They both were involved in doing research on cardiovascular systems and rode the bus into work together each morning.
The two became close and kept in touch over the years, even after Truong returned to California to help his siblings care for his aging father.
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When Fennessy moved to Sacramento for a few years, Truong was the only person she knew in the area and helped introduce her to friends. The two hiked and ate out together, though Fennessy said she had trouble keeping up with the hikes Truong liked to take.
On one hike in the Bay Area, the pair got lost and while Fennessy said she felt slightly panicked, it didn't phase Truong at all.
"He was in his element -- I was not so happy when I thought we were lost but to him it was not a big deal," she said. "If he had to sleep in the woods he would sleep in the woods. He was just that kind of guy."
On another hike, Truong told her, "I'm going to hike the Himalayas."
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So she wasn't surprised when she visited him in the Bay Area last month and he told her over dinner that he was planning his trip to Mt. Everest. For Truong, just arriving in the Himalayan range was a dream come true.
Of his death, Fennessy said, "I hope it was a brief moment and he was not in that much pain."
Truong, who was in his late 40s, worked at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara, the hospital confirmed Tuesday.
Kaiser spokesman Karl Sonkin said, "Kaiser Permanente has extended its condolences and sympathy to the family."
Click here to find out how you can help the victims in Nepal, and click here for full coverage on the devastating quake.
