Nothing is stopping Hari Budha Magar, a Nepalese who wants to reach the summit of Everest despite having both legs amputated.
The 43-year-old former soldier was amputated above the knee in Afghanistan in 2010 after jumping onto an improvised explosive device.
After years of rehabilitation and training for his journey, he plans to climb Mount Everest next month to fulfill his childhood dream.
He also describes his entire career on his web and he has adopted a slogan that goes well with his approach, “neither legs nor borders”.
He wants to be the first upper-knee amputee to climb the roof of the world, which culminates at 8,849 meters.
After the shock
Obviously, Hari Budha Magar is a fighter in life, so after the shock of disability, his goal was “to see what he can physically do,” he told Agence France-Presse as he set off for Everest Base Camp
He first tried skydiving and then took up kayaking and skiing.
“It opened my mind and I tried everything,” he admitted to AFP.
“It is possible”
While skiing, the man realized that climbing Everest might be possible for him.
“When I was skiing, the view of the mountains reminded me of Everest. I always wondered if I could climb one day, so I tried it and found that it was possible,” he explains.
To achieve his goal, he wears a specially designed suit with silicone lining on his knees to protect him from frostbite. His prostheses were also shortened and spiked.
It will not be his first summit as, in addition to the summit of Mont Blanc (4808m), he has already reached the summit of Mera Peak, a 6476m mountain in Nepal.
Photo: AFP
The mountaineer has already climbed two mountains over 4000 meters.
A first
As mentioned, if Hari Budha Magar achieves his goal, he will be the first transfemoral summit of Everest.
Only two double amputees below the knee succeeded: New Zealander Mark Inglis in 2006 and China’s Xia Boyu in 2018.
Our hero was the first to attempt the feat in 2018 but was forced to delay the project to fight against a Nepalese law that was passed in 2017 and has since been revoked.
For safety reasons, this prohibited climbing Everest for double amputees or the blind.
By a strange coincidence, the timing of his ascent will coincide with the coronation of Charles III (May 6), just as Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s first ascent of Everest coincided with the coronation of Elizabeth II, it’s 70 years.
resilience
The story of Hari Budha Magar is one of resilience.
“I thought my life was over, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair,” he told AFP, admitting he had two more years of suicidal thoughts to start drinking.
“My main goal is to educate about disabilities. If I had known that, I would not have wasted two years of my life, I would have put them to good use.
“Disabled people are not condemned to laziness, there are just different ways of doing things. As long as you can adapt your life to the situation, anything is possible. There are no limits, the sky is the limit.”
– With AFP