Ex-Gurkha soldier without leg on Mount Everest

A former British Army Gurkha soldier who lost both his legs in Afghanistan has made trekking history by climbing Mount Everest.

Hari Budha Magar, 43, has the distinction of being the first above-the-knee double amputee to summit the world’s highest mountain.

He reached Mount Everest in Nepal on April 17, exactly 13 years after his legs were destroyed by an IED in Afghanistan in 2010.

But he had to wait until May 19 to reach the summit and was forced to wait 18 days at Everest Base Camp for the weather to clear.

While climbing, the soldier and his crew faced freezing conditions, Buddha Mahar saw two corpses being dragged down.

Although conditions were safe for the summit, bad weather left his sunglasses and oxygen mask frozen and he was only minutes from the summit.
“All my jackets are completely frozen,” he told the Press Association news agency from Mount Everest base camp. Everything was frozen. We even put our hot water in a thermos and it froze and we couldn’t drink it.

“I ran out of oxygen when I came down. The guys came in with the oxygen… I was kicking my ass and we had 30, 40 minutes of oxygen and two, three hours to get down.

Gurkha

Gurkha units are composed of Nepalese and Nepali-speaking Indians and serve in the Nepalese Army (96,000), the Indian Army (42,000), the British Army (4,010), the Gurkha Singapore Contingent, the Gurkha Brunei Reserve Unit, UN peacekeeping forces, and in war zones around the world. Gurkhas are closely related to the kukuri, a forward-curving knife, and have a reputation for military prowess. Former Indian Army Chief of Staff Field Marshal Sam Maneksha once said: “If a man says he is not afraid to die, he is either lying or a Gurkha. »

In 2004, around 300 Gurkha troops were stationed in Ivory Coast to help British refugees fleeing the conflict-torn West African country to safety. telegram