Marisa Eve Girawong, a 28-year-old Thai-American doctor, died in an avalanche that struck the base camp area after the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that killed thousands, including more than a dozen on the world's highest mountain.
Hours before the avalanche, Marisa wrote on Facebook that she was craving sushi. She was most recently a resident of Edison, New Jersey. Seattle-based Madison Mountaineering confirmed Girawong's death on its website.
"It is with deep sorrow and profound grief that we can confirm the loss of our Everest/Lhotse base camp doctor," Madison co-founder Kurt Hunter wrote in a blog post entitled "Our hearts are broken."
Quake victim Marisa Eve Girawong, a 28-year-old Thai-American doctor, died at an Everest base camp in an avalanche triggered by the 7.9 earthquake.
As of early Monday, no other Thai casualties were reported. The government has confirmed that 66 Thais in Nepal are safe.
Girawong died at the expedition's 17,500-foot elevation base camp. All 15 members of the expedition's climbing team made it safely to Camp 2, where they were awaiting helicopter evacuation.
According her bio on the mountaineering company's site, Girawong, who was born in Thailand, had been a physician's assistant working in a Level 1 emergency room "with a focus on trauma and wilderness medicine" when she joined the Everest expedition earlier this year.
Girawong, an avid rock climber and mountaineer, had been working in the Everest region for more about a year.
"Officially the highest I've been so far at 5,550 meters/18,300 ft.," she wrote on Facebook on April 12. "Never made it last year but finally got to the top of Kala Patthar."
Hours before the avalanche struck, Girawong wrote on Facebook:
"Day 28 on this arduous journey, snow is falling & my food cravings are at an all time high. Is a crunchy spicy tuna roll with eel sauce too much to ask for?"
