When Dr Chris Gauci was invited to join a British fundraising group on a trek up Kilimanjaro, he thought he would be getting a free ride. However, he soon learnt that as one of two doctors in the 27-strong group, he would have to sing for his supper.
Just back from the 10-day journey to Tanzania, Dr Gauci is still recovering from the experience - he had to resuscitate a fellow climber close Africa's highest summit. Just hours before the group - which raised £90,000 for the Marie Curie Cancer Foundation through the climb - was preparing for its last trek up to the summit, a woman in her 50s lost consciousness. The 29-year-old doctor had to resuscitate the woman, some 4,800 metres above sea level.
"Just a few minutes before, she had been packing her bags. Then she suddenly lost consciousness and stopped breathing," he says. Dr Gauci managed to resuscitate her: "In the confusion, all went well, although I still don't know how."
A helicopter had been called but failed to appear, and six porters had to run for some 10 hours carrying the patient, on a stretcher, down the mountain.
"I thought I was going to have to go down with her, which would have meant missing the ascent to the summit," he says. But hours later, after a six-hour, night-time journey, he was 5,895 metres above sea level, seeing the sunrise.
"It is beautiful, but I don't remember much about that day," he admits, adding that he himself started getting altitude sickness.
"I thought I was suffering because of the lack of oxygen in the air, and I was not thinking straight. But in the middle of all that, I remember feeling this was not the place for me and wanting to get down as soon as possible."
Not even his medical training, or the course in expedition medicine, prepared Dr Gauci for the feeling of altitude sickness, which started with a throbbing headache.
"The higher we went, the worse it got, until I could feel my head throbbing with every step I took," he says, adding that altitude sickness can be fatal in some cases, and the only remedy is to descend.
Now he's on firm ground, Dr Gauci is back to specialising in anaesthesia, but the trip has infected him with the bug for trekking and if the opportunity arises he will not shy away from a similar challenge.