Annie Doyle: Everest mum transcript

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MIKE MUNRO: 2,500m high and no place for the faint-hearted. Just reaching here takes nerves of steel. But it's where Annie Doyle feels right at home. Do you get scared?

Annie Doyle: No. I think scared is the wrong word. I have a healthy respect for the mountain. Fear of failure's a big problem for me. Yeah, I don't like failing - at all.

MIKE MUNRO: A dedicated and super fit mountaineer, a mother of two and in this extreme and hostile environment, a hero as well. How much do you owe Annie Doyle?

Mark Gommers: I owe her my life. As melodramatic as it sounds, I can look her in the eye, Mike, and say that I owe her my life. That's the truth.

MIKE MUNRO: Crunching through thousands of metres of mountain one day, crunching numbers on a computer the next. Annie is Sunnyfields's chief financial officer - a centre for the intellectually disabled in Sydney where two of team couldn't be more excited....about Annie's next great adventure. They've done a painting for her on summit of Mount Everest.

Annie Doyle: Did you do this?

Employee: Yes, OK.

Annie Doyle: Aww!

Employee: Aww, OK! Experience around here.

(LAUGHS)

MIKE MUNRO: From the moment Annie climbed her first summit, she was hooked. And now she's training to climb two of the world's most dangerous peaks... Remind me not to get on your wrong side, Annie. Mount Vincent in Antarctica and then the daddy of them all - Mount Everest.
What is it about it you love so much?

Annie Doyle: It's totally an independence thing.

MIKE MUNRO: Six years ago, at the age of 45, Annie took her first steps towards her destiny - to conquer the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents, joining climbing's most elite mountaineers. Her first peak was Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya.

Woman: Is this the toilet with the view? Oh, beautiful!

MIKE MUNRO: Then Mount Elbrus in Russia followed by Malaysia's Mount Kinabalu.

Annie Doyle: That's base camp over there.

MIKE MUNRO: Then came the South American giant in the Andies...

Annie Doyle: That's the beast we want to conquer.

MIKE MUNRO: ..Aconcagua.

MIKE MUNRO: This was her fourth summit but she was struck down by heat stroke and dehydration.

Man: What happens because of dehydration is that the brain swell, you know.

MIKE MUNRO: Annie quickly recovered and went back for more. This time, it was Denali in Alaska - the coldest mountain in the world.

Annie Doyle: It was the coldest I've ever endured.

MIKE MUNRO: Well, with the wind chill factor, how cold?

Annie Doyle: I'm thinking we went down to -20, -25.

MIKE MUNRO: But none of them even compare to Everest where the thin air and snap-freeze temperatures kill 1 in every 15 climbers. Which is why training at altitude is so precious to Annie. Is it the beauty?
Is it the challenge? What is it?

Annie Doyle: I mean, if you get to play in a playground like this, it's pretty special. And you can challenge yourself at the same time, it's an added bonus. There's a pain point. So it's like all endurance sport - you get to a point where it's hard slog and then it becomes mental. So you have to push through that point and, you know, a lot of people
can't push through that point.

MIKE MUNRO: But when things go wrong, they go very wrong. Annie discovered that last year while climbing Mount Dixon in New Zealand.

Mark Gommers: There was a storm raging and it was a white-out.

MIKE MUNRO: Rockclimbing instructor and former SAS trooper Mark Gommers had already reached the top but on the way down, he knew he was in big trouble. He could barely breathe. He stumbled into a hut where Annie was sheltering with her climbing guide, Mark Woodford.

Mark Gommers: I was drowning in my own lungs. My lungs were filling up with blood. Gommers didn't know it but he was close to death, bordering on hypothermia and dehydration. I was having, like, a panic attack. It felt like I was having a heart attack.

MIKE MUNRO: But Annie did everything right.

Annie Doyle: Slow it down, slow it down. Annie was a voice there that was guiding me.

Mark Gommers: She kept encouraging me to breathe, getting me to focus, trying to calm me down.

MIKE MUNRO: But what she did next saved his life. She stopped him from lying down on his back.

Mark Gommers: Because lying down, the blood accumulates in the lungs and absolutely - lying down, it would have been impossible to breathe and she recognised that. I owe her my life.

Annie Doyle: Mark Gommers!

MIKE MUNRO: This is the first time Gommers has seen Annie since his terrifying ordeal.

Annie Doyle: Oh! How have you been?

Mark Gommers: Well, thanks to you, I'm here. I'm breathing.

MIKE MUNRO: For Annie's family - husband Rob, son Matt and daughter Grace...

Annie Doyle: It's more than yourself on the mountain

MIKE MUNRO:...the dangers of her upcoming climb to the top of Everest are all too real.

Matt Doyle: Honestly, my preference is I don't want her to go but, yeah, at the end of the day, no-one's stopping her and I'll be so happy when she's done this and it's all finished and so proud of her.

MIKE MUNRO: You were dead-set against it?

Rob Doyle: Oh, I was totally against it.

Annie Doyle: He said that, you know, "You're not going," you know, "this is a deal breaker" and I said, "Deal over" but then we compromised.

Rob Doyle: I had to get on board because she was going to do it anyway and it would be a silly person that sort of maintained their resistance anyway.

MIKE MUNRO: Here's to safety first.

ALL: To Annie.

MIKE MUNRO: In a few weeks, Annie's off to Antarctica where Mount Vincent will be her sixth summit. Next May, she'll tackle Everest - the final summit in a Magnificent Seven.

Annie Doyle: It's got camaraderie, teamwork. I'm looking forward to the whole package.

MIKE MUNRO: Even the death zone, the last 1,000m?

Annie Doyle: Even the death zone. Woo-hoo! But I'm coming back.