“We were at the end of our life”: Mike Horn recounts his flirtation with death at “Seven to Eight” – LCI

The adventure, the story of his life. Since the age of 25, Mike Horn has multiplied expeditions in extreme environments, those which push the body to its limits. This tough guy with a tender and bruised heart, always close to nature, confides. “I’m not afraid of dying. When you’re afraid of dying, you don’t take risks. Rather, I’m afraid of not living”, affirms the South African living in Switzerland in front of the cameras of “Seven to eight” in the video at the top of this article.

Death precisely, the fifties saw it up close during his last exploration. On September 11, 2019, he set off to cross the Arctic via the North Pole. Problem, the ice has become very thin making the task very perilous. “During my first expedition, the ice was up to 2.50m thick. When we passed the last time, 14 years later, the ice was 8cm. had such a change “, describes Mike Horn.

After several days of walking in appalling conditions, he manages to reach his destination despite the cold, fatigue and hunger. “We were at the end of our life”, he emphasizes. He then made a mistake that almost cost him his life. “In an area where the ice was getting too brittle, I fell into the water. The sled, which was still on the ice, slapped my back and kicked me in. Suddenly I felt trapped. “, describes Mike Horn. “I saw that I could have a little resistance to pull myself out of the water “, he adds, he who finally came out of it narrowly.

Several months later, the adventurer claims, he probably pushed his limits too much that day. “I think this is one of the hardest expeditions I have ever done in my life”, he says. “I felt emotions of fear, between my daughters and me. Maybe it was the limit of my abilities “, he adds. Corn “to push myself to the extreme, that’s where I have the feeling of being alive”, explains the explorer.

During its passage on the set of Seven to Eight, Mike Horn also returned to another trauma: the death of his wife. He recounts the last exchanges with Katie who succumbed to cancer 6 years earlier. “If you don’t have enough support from your family, you can’t leave quietly. I was lucky to have an extraordinary wife “, he says. “When I saw that she was pocket of her death, I said to her: ‘Katie I can’t live without you, I’d rather die with you’. She answered me : ‘Mike you must not die with me, you must live for me’“, he relates with emotion.

This video extract is from the replay of Seven to Eight, weekly news and reports program broadcast on TF1 and presented by Harry Roselmack. Each week, it offers three to four reports on current events: politics, news items, society or even international events.