A LIVERPOOL explorer died just 14 hours after he achieved a lifelong dream and reached the summit of Everest.

Peter Kinloch, who worked in Merseyside Police’s IT department, passed away on Wednesday at 8,600 metres – as he made his descent down the world’s highest mountain.

Due to crippling altitude sickness, the 28-year-old was temporarily blinded and his condition quickly deteriorated.

His father, Peter Snr , said yesterday: “We can take comfort in that he achieved one of his lifetime ambitions.

“How many people can say they stood on top of the world?”

Halewood man Peter, who was engaged to his Turkish girlfriend Gul Cosguner, wanted to scale the highest peaks on all seven continents.

His remains are still on the bitterly cold mountain. His family are facing up to the prospect of his body possibly never being recovered.

According to a blog written by one of the south Liverpool man’s team, the 28-year-old began to struggle on the descent in very cold conditions and strong winds.

Blind, and with frostbite on two of his fingers, Sherpas desperately tried to coax the former Liverpool College pupil down from a point called Mushroom Rock. But after eight hours, during which oxygen and medication were administered, his rescuers were forced to admit defeat, close to being killed themselves.

With no other choice, Peter was left on the mountain while team leader David O’Brien and three Sherpas arrived back at Camp 3 “with hypothermia, exhaustion and minor frostbite”.

His father, a former Merseyside Police superintendent, said they were drawing comfort from his son’s accomplishment reaching the top of Everest.

Speaking from the Isle of Skye, where the 28-year-old went to secondary school, he said: “Peter packed so much into 28 years.

“He did in that time, what many people fail to achieve in a lifetime.

“He used to go climbing mountains when he was a little boy. Being in the hills has been with him all his life.