The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

Related Photos

June 18, 2009

Andrew Swanson 'the real deal'

Surgeon remembered as experience-seeker

By Brian Ojanpa

MANKATO — At Andrew Swanson’s funeral Thursday, a eulogizing colleague posed a rhetorical question: “Why Andrew, why now?”

It’s a fair query, considering the Mankato physician never sipped life when he could gulp it, and in his 36 years on Earth he drank deeply and altruistically at every chance.

“He was much less interested in attaining personal possessions than in amassing experiences,” his brother Kyle said in tribute before the standing-room-only service at First Presbyterian Church.

Kyle Swanson said that when he asked his brother why he was always going off somewhere — white-water rafting, humanitarian medical trips to Africa, climbing another mountain — the answer seemed to come from some higher place.

“He told me it helped him to see things and think of things in a different way.”

Andrew Swanson and John Mislow of Newton, Mass., were killed June 11 in a climbing accident on Alaska’s Mount McKinley, North America’s highest peak.

In the tributes to Swanson, a common thread emerged: His energy and largesse toward others were at once humbling and inspirational.

“Andrew excelled at everything he set out to do,” said friend Luke Wood.

Dr. Oheneba Boachie-Adjei spoke of Swanson’s eight trips to Ghana, where he performed spinal surgery on children with severe deformities.

“He’d go to the remotest spot in Africa and find the most crippled child and give him a new lease on life. He was in a class by himself,” Boachie-Adjei said.

In a written tribute, surgeon colleague R. Wynn Kearney Jr. said, “I have not known anyone in my life who made a difference in the lives of so many people in such a short time ... He was the real deal.”

Friend Kyle Duea said as much: “When he was in Africa, he still managed to call me on my birthday. He wanted to experience life firsthand, not sitting on some couch watching life pass by. I never knew anyone who did more with his time than Andrew.”

Swanson, a 1991 graduate of Mankato West High School, practiced with his brother and father at the Orthopaedic and Fracture Clinic in Mankato.

In 2000, Swanson and Mislow shared the National Park Service’s Denali Pro award, which is given to Mount McKinley climbers who put others’ needs ahead of their own.

In recent days Swanson’s family received word that the award will be renamed after the two climbers.

Mount McKinley, or Denali, turned out to be Swanson’s ultimate nemesis. In an aborted attempt to reach its peak several years ago, Swanson wrote in his journal of his frustrations over the pair’s inability to conquer it.

“This mountain is far bigger than us, truly,” he wrote. “I have a hard time not considering myself a failure, but it’s time to head home.”

Friend Steve Scholer, in his tribute, said he’d always wondered what motivated Swanson to be so adventurous, to “live life to the fullest that so many of us strive for, but that so many of us find elusive.”

Scholer said he eventually realized that his friend’s gift came from his parents, Gene and Eydie.

“They gave him their unconditional love, and with that unconditional love, the world was his.”

Text Only | Photo Reprints
Local News