:00:13. > :00:18.the US. And now on BBC News it is There's no-one quite like my guest
:00:18. > :00:23.today on HARDtalk. Mark Inglis is a double amputee who has climbed
:00:23. > :00:27.Everest on his prosthetic limbs. You can do anything in life if you
:00:27. > :00:32.damn well want it, he says. But his was an achievement which was also
:00:32. > :00:42.marked with controversy. Did his expedition do enough to save
:00:42. > :01:00.
:01:00. > :01:08.another climber dying on the Mark Inglis, welcome to HARDtalk.
:01:08. > :01:14.Thanks. Almost 30 years ago in your early 20s when you lost your lower
:01:14. > :01:18.limbs. Can you explain to me what happened? Well, at the time I was
:01:18. > :01:25.23 years old and a search-and- rescue mountaineer actually in New
:01:25. > :01:30.Zealand. On a training climb with a new... we got caught out in a
:01:30. > :01:36.severe storm. We got caught out right near the summit of the Middle
:01:36. > :01:40.Pique, right near the summit of our highest mountain. We crawled into a
:01:40. > :01:45.little ice cave expecting to be there for a few hours and that few
:01:45. > :01:49.hours turned into 13 and a half days. And you were rescued within a
:01:49. > :01:53.very short window of opportunity? We certainly were. At that time it
:01:53. > :01:59.was the longest recorded spell of bad weather in New Zealand history
:01:59. > :02:03.and shortly after we were rescued, within a three-hour window, it went
:02:03. > :02:07.bad for a three days afterwards so you need a bit of luck involved. --
:02:07. > :02:12.13 days. You need luck to be rescued but it certainly was bad
:02:12. > :02:16.luck that you lost your lower legs. What was the rehabilitation like,
:02:16. > :02:21.especially for a young man that had been so active? The best way of
:02:21. > :02:26.explaining it I think is that I always think the person to have his
:02:26. > :02:31.legs cut off when he's 23 years old is a young man to near. You live
:02:32. > :02:36.your life then you are so active and you put yourself in positions
:02:36. > :02:42.that could kill you. When you put yourself into a position on
:02:42. > :02:46.Christmas Eve in 1982 and the morning having your legs cut off
:02:46. > :02:50.just below the knee, the whole mindset is how are you going to fix
:02:50. > :02:54.this, what are you going to do now? Where are the opportunities for the
:02:54. > :03:02.rest of life? You said also that you lost around ten years of your
:03:02. > :03:06.life. That must have been difficult for a mountain near? One of the
:03:06. > :03:09.things that I really struggled with, with a lot of amputees, I was doing
:03:09. > :03:15.a lot of things I thought were amazing and everyone else thought
:03:15. > :03:25.were amazing and they were going, "Great" one of the things I did not
:03:25. > :03:25.
:03:25. > :03:34.realise was that people were given the accolade to a double amputee
:03:34. > :03:39.when I thought people saw Mark, not a double and -- and beauty. When I
:03:39. > :03:43.was working within changing a teen culture that I came to get used to
:03:43. > :03:51.the skills of standing outside of Rosell fans understanding what
:03:51. > :04:01.other people see and then I like wake of in my mind. Were people
:04:01. > :04:09.cutting you too much slack? Nobody knows what a tumble and beauty can
:04:10. > :04:17.to -- a double amputee. If I can do this, think how much more when
:04:17. > :04:22.people are starting off at a higher level can do. So after 19 years you
:04:22. > :04:28.decide to i guess confront your demons by making another attempt on
:04:28. > :04:32.Mount Cook, this mountain that have led to you having the double
:04:32. > :04:37.amputation. The mountain didn't, mountaineering is like an exam, it
:04:37. > :04:41.is like a mirror. It is a mirror of your competence. The mountain
:04:41. > :04:45.didn't take my legs, it was my Competency. That's why I say
:04:45. > :04:49.confronting your demons. It is less about demons, it is getting the
:04:49. > :04:53.chance to do it again and that's mountaineering. Every time you
:04:53. > :04:58.climb a mountain, as soon as you get back down the first thing you
:04:58. > :05:01.think is you can do that ten times better tomorrow. For me a lot of it
:05:01. > :05:05.was the understanding that I never went back to climbing for quite
:05:05. > :05:10.some time because I couldn't do it well enough. The day that I thought
:05:10. > :05:15.I could do it well enough and do it by myself then that was the day I
:05:15. > :05:19.went back and that is when I went back in 2001/2002. What did it mean
:05:19. > :05:22.to you to reach the summit given that not only had he failed to
:05:22. > :05:30.reach the summit nearly 20 years before but you had also ended up
:05:30. > :05:34.losing both your legs? It was in the 1920 years before because I had
:05:34. > :05:38.climbed Mount Cook many times before. Quite often we do not go to
:05:38. > :05:43.the summit. It was more about understanding how much more I could
:05:43. > :05:48.do, that was the thing, and to stand on the summit of Cook as a
:05:48. > :05:53.double amputee, it was like if I can do this I can do anything. In
:05:53. > :05:57.my mind's eye, there's only one thing I saw from that summit of
:05:57. > :06:01.Cook, my boyhood dream of growing up in New Zealand as a young
:06:01. > :06:05.mountaineer and its for every young New Zealand mountaineer, that is
:06:05. > :06:10.the summit of Everest. Which we will go on to but before we get
:06:10. > :06:14.there, I'm just wondering at this stage you have a family? Certainly.
:06:14. > :06:17.Did you not think that whatever you were doing in terms of a sense of
:06:18. > :06:23.achievement for yourself, with Mount Cook, let alone Everest that
:06:23. > :06:28.we will get on to, was this a case of rebalancing your sense of risk?
:06:28. > :06:32.I guess so, that is the impression if you're not a mountain near. I
:06:32. > :06:36.grew up a mountain here and I guess it gives a different frame of
:06:36. > :06:42.reference. Are you suggesting it is something genetic that you can't
:06:42. > :06:46.fight? It is more about being given opportunities to live in situations,
:06:46. > :06:50.to have experiences that unless you actually do it, and this will come
:06:50. > :06:55.back with Everest as well, unless you have actually been there you
:06:55. > :07:03.can't understand. It's one once you've actually been there you
:07:03. > :07:07.think are, OK and that is the great thing. The reason I am asking you,
:07:07. > :07:10.mountaineers have extremely intense experiences but there are lots of
:07:10. > :07:15.war correspondents who have intense experiences for example but you
:07:15. > :07:19.balance things when it comes to a sense of risk with your family. One
:07:19. > :07:23.of the quotes that you came out with was that a lot of the
:07:23. > :07:28.challenges you put yourself through put perspective into your life and
:07:28. > :07:38.makes the rest of your life have real meaning. I guess that if your
:07:38. > :07:44.Mark Inglis' Y four children you might be thinking, "Hang on, don't
:07:44. > :07:51.we have a part to play?". Yes they do. If you were to ask and, she
:07:51. > :07:55.married a young mountaineer, one of her comments was that she knew I
:07:55. > :08:00.would climb Everest one day but she did not think it would take me so
:08:00. > :08:05.long. There would have been no way I would not have gone to Everest If
:08:05. > :08:09.I did not have the best team. Not going with the best team is too
:08:09. > :08:15.great a risk. So that was one of the things. In many ways is almost
:08:15. > :08:19.easier these days because our communication is so great. I can
:08:19. > :08:26.talk to and every day when I'm away. And that is far better than many
:08:26. > :08:29.years ago when you get one phone- call, on a scratchy set phone, or a
:08:29. > :08:34.radio call or something like that and that's much harder on your
:08:34. > :08:39.family. You decided after Mount Cook, as you say, the next step was
:08:39. > :08:43.Everest, it was your boyhood dream. For those of us who have never
:08:43. > :08:49.stood atop a high mountain, let alone Everest, take us there. Give
:08:49. > :08:55.us a sense of just how hostile the environment is. I mean some days it
:08:55. > :08:58.can actually be stunningly beautiful. I sunbathed on the
:08:58. > :09:03.summit of Mount Cook, I have had friends that have spent hours on
:09:03. > :09:07.the summit of Everest. But on other days it's absolutely... the wind
:09:07. > :09:13.can turn the core of your jacket into something that's trying to
:09:13. > :09:16.beat your face to death. It's a living evil force that can be so
:09:16. > :09:21.disconcerting, you have to be so focused on exactly what you're
:09:21. > :09:26.doing to make sure that you do the right thing to stay alive.
:09:26. > :09:31.presumably you're also a very short of breath at the highest altitude?
:09:31. > :09:35.Absolutely. At Everest, when people see the oxygen masks, that really
:09:35. > :09:41.doesn't compensate. It doesn't make it like sea level. It perhaps gives
:09:41. > :09:45.you an extra 1,000 metres or 1,500 metres, perhaps a bit more. You
:09:45. > :09:52.can't carry enough oxygen to make it seem like sea level. So you're
:09:52. > :09:57.very short of breath. With you, you said that although you describe
:09:57. > :10:02.some people going up to the summit of Everest and spending hours their
:10:02. > :10:06.soaking in the view, you actually... it was a race and you barely
:10:06. > :10:11.touched the summit before coming back down. We were there on a
:10:11. > :10:15.really difficult day. When we set off early in the day it was -50
:10:15. > :10:21.degrees Celsius. It had been clear and very cold. I stood on the
:10:21. > :10:26.summit and it was minus 38 at 7 am in the sunshine. The biggest
:10:26. > :10:30.challenge I knew I had was to go down. For a double amputee to climb
:10:30. > :10:34.up, especially if you've been a climate or your life, is a
:10:34. > :10:38.relatively straightforward thing. You're down in muscle power and
:10:38. > :10:43.things like that compared to an able-bodied climb up. But when you
:10:43. > :10:46.turn around and come down its like ten times harder. I knew my
:10:46. > :10:51.challenge was from the very minute I got to the summit of Everest was
:10:51. > :11:00.to get down, that was going to be the biggest challenge of my life.
:11:00. > :11:06.And you sustain some serious damage. I did a lot of damage to my stumps
:11:06. > :11:10.on the way down. If I knew that damage would happen, I looked at
:11:10. > :11:14.every at this situation that I could get myself put into and I
:11:14. > :11:17.worked out ways to get around it, it is all about visualisation and
:11:17. > :11:22.planning and injuring you've got a back-up plan for everything. The
:11:22. > :11:29.two things I didn't have a back-up plan for was my oxygen mask broke
:11:29. > :11:33.at around 1:30am, so that meant I had far less oxygen than I could of
:11:33. > :11:38.had. Virtually I could have had none from the second step to the
:11:38. > :11:43.summit and back down. That meant I got a lot colder than I would have.
:11:43. > :11:47.The other problem was that your stumps aren't made to be stood on
:11:47. > :11:52.really. It's really important that they stay really tightly in their
:11:52. > :11:57.sockets. But you have just burnt so much of your body mass on those
:11:57. > :12:01.last eight-ten hours on summit day that the stumps actually shrunk
:12:01. > :12:05.like that, and I went too far and the combination of the severe cold
:12:05. > :12:10.and the pounding at the bottom means that I popped the bones out
:12:10. > :12:15.of the stumps. It sounds like a miscalculation, an agonising this
:12:15. > :12:19.calculation. It didn't hurt at the time because it was none. It is a
:12:19. > :12:22.bit like frostbite, it is insidious, you don't know that it is happening
:12:22. > :12:27.to you. If I ever thought it was going to I would have gone back
:12:27. > :12:32.down and tried to work out a system that would have been better. There
:12:32. > :12:37.are a lot of an duties going for Everest now and it is the number
:12:37. > :12:41.one, don't worry, get it fixed. Learn from be. On your ascent you
:12:41. > :12:51.came across a climber who was close to death, David Sharp, a British
:12:51. > :12:57.
:12:57. > :13:04.It was brutally cold. About -50. In the cave there was a climber. He
:13:04. > :13:10.was virtually so -- frozen solid. He was pretty unresponsive. The
:13:10. > :13:15.unfortunate thing is that I could not do anything. For me personally,
:13:15. > :13:21.I could not pick him up. In fact, none of us could picking up or move
:13:21. > :13:31.him. So you couldn't actually stop because it was just so cold at the
:13:31. > :13:35.time. Doing that night, about 30 climbers came past David. We didn't
:13:36. > :13:40.know who he was at the time. I have a photo of him of the previous day
:13:40. > :13:44.at the summit so he must have been up there for about 36 hours without
:13:44. > :13:51.oxygen and he was in a very serious condition. A UN your team decided
:13:51. > :14:00.to push on? There was nothing that we could do. -- you and your team.
:14:00. > :14:10.We made that decision. The last thing I saw of David Wise Owl
:14:10. > :14:13.- of the day that was. People tried to help him at various times in the
:14:13. > :14:17.day but there was nothing they could do. They were with him when
:14:17. > :14:27.he passed away. One of the conflicting accounts that a rose
:14:27. > :14:27.
:14:27. > :14:33.was you said you sent a radio message to your senior and he said
:14:33. > :14:38.he never heard from you. Why it was it, that discrepancy? We never
:14:38. > :14:44.worked that out. For it was you who said he called him. I thought I
:14:44. > :14:51.called him. But, you know, it may not have worked or whatever. But
:14:51. > :14:55.that was it. Do you recall having called him? You need to understand
:14:55. > :14:59.that it is 8,000 metres. It was very difficult to recall, even when
:14:59. > :15:03.I was writing my book, it was difficult to recall. I had to go
:15:03. > :15:07.back and speak so many people who were around the at the time. Could
:15:07. > :15:12.it be that your memory is skewed because you were so focused on this
:15:12. > :15:16.overriding ambition of reaching the summit? I was so focused but not on
:15:16. > :15:20.the overall ambition of reaching the summit. That is the difference
:15:20. > :15:24.between what happened to David unfortunately and what happens when
:15:24. > :15:29.you are in a team environment. The thing that kills a lot of people on
:15:29. > :15:34.Everest is that they are so focused on reaching the summit. They keep
:15:34. > :15:37.on going and going past the point of no return. If you do not stand
:15:37. > :15:43.on the summit of Everest with enough energy left to get down, you
:15:43. > :15:48.will not survive. But I am asking about your response, not mistakes
:15:48. > :15:56.he made. Sir Edward Hillary, your boyhood hero, described the actions
:15:56. > :16:00.of your team as "pathetic" on that day. He did not have the full
:16:00. > :16:05.information and that is the most frustrating thing. What you mean
:16:05. > :16:09.the full information? He knew that you were on an ascent to a place
:16:09. > :16:13.that he had gone too. He knew what conditions were like and that you
:16:13. > :16:19.past a climber in deep distress and he thought you should have stopped.
:16:19. > :16:23.Nobody told him it was -50. Nobody told him there were a range of
:16:23. > :16:27.other people on the mountain and nobody told him this particular
:16:27. > :16:32.person actually, from members of our team, got a lot of help that
:16:32. > :16:36.day but still could not survive. Why was a decision not taken to
:16:36. > :16:41.stay and comforting until the point of death? Because it was -50. You
:16:42. > :16:48.cannot stop at -50. It is almost impossible to wear enough clothes
:16:48. > :16:54.on Everest at -52 actually survive. I had lost two very good friends
:16:54. > :17:00.who did the exact same thing. I almost lost another friend as well.
:17:00. > :17:04.That was for the same reason. The only reason he survived his he had
:17:04. > :17:09.to leave his person. We were in a similar situation. The EU
:17:09. > :17:15.personally regret what happened? personally regret not going back.
:17:15. > :17:22.- do you personally. There was nothing I could do to save him.
:17:22. > :17:27.say that but there was a rescue in 2001 at 8,700 metres, higher than
:17:27. > :17:33.David Sharpe. Just a couple of hundred metres than the sum it. Two
:17:33. > :17:39.people who were alive but unresponsive. On the north side?
:17:39. > :17:45.From what I understand. I am unaware of that. This is the
:17:45. > :17:51.highest rescue ever on the north side. One of the rescuers who took
:17:51. > :17:55.36 hours with his colleagues to get these people down, they were two
:17:55. > :17:58.men, he said it would have been a day that some of crime if we had to
:17:58. > :18:02.walk past them on the way down without putting in the effort. It
:18:02. > :18:07.was the obvious thing to do. So it was feasible. It was feasible but I
:18:07. > :18:11.would have to look at the situation. It is easy to make these situations
:18:11. > :18:18.about Everest, it was like that on that day, but we were there on a
:18:18. > :18:22.particularly vicious day and in very extreme weather conditions.
:18:22. > :18:28.Unfortunately, as a double amputee, I could not picking up and Campbell
:18:28. > :18:35.-- carry him down. Is there a problem with too many inexperienced,
:18:35. > :18:39.badly guide climbers going up there? The problem with Everest is
:18:39. > :18:45.and commercialism but a lack of professionalism. That is what I am
:18:45. > :18:49.getting at. It is unregulated, isn't it? Anybody can go up there
:18:49. > :18:57.if they want to? It is not a regulated. You need a permit and
:18:57. > :19:01.you need to provide a letter, which I did. I bread and climbed another
:19:01. > :19:07.8,000 metres at peak and I made sure I checked all the right boxes.
:19:07. > :19:11.The difference is that, forgive me for interrupting, the south side in
:19:11. > :19:16.the Paul is quite... It is reasonably expensive to get the
:19:16. > :19:22.permit. It is democratic to get the permit. On the north side, the
:19:22. > :19:27.Tibetan side, it is a free for all. Many have said it is too much so.
:19:27. > :19:34.In my experience, I needed to do just as much for either side. That
:19:34. > :19:44.was my experience. His Everest as much of a challenge as it once was?
:19:44. > :19:44.
:19:45. > :19:48.As it was when Sir Edmund Hillary did it? It is a remarkable
:19:48. > :19:55.achievement that he reached the summit but there are those, your
:19:55. > :20:01.Piers, who say it is pretty much a tourist peak now. It is too much...
:20:01. > :20:07.The route is all set out with guide ropes and it is too much of a
:20:07. > :20:14.procession. Everest has been roped since day one, except for so head -
:20:14. > :20:20.- said that Hillary. It needs to be that way. -- Sir Edmund Hillary.
:20:20. > :20:27.There are too many people that get up high but in 2006, 11 people died.
:20:27. > :20:34.The only year that is worse is 1996. The reason in 1996, there was a
:20:34. > :20:38.huge storm. In 2006, it was the Super cold weather. Too many people
:20:38. > :20:43.got up high that should not have been there. But in terms of the
:20:43. > :20:49.achievement itself, do you think that possibly, ironically, you a
:20:49. > :20:57.man with two prosthetic limbs, has devalued the experience of climbing
:20:57. > :21:03.Everest because you managed it? Yes... I do not believe so. I know
:21:03. > :21:07.how hard it was for me. It was not a walk in the park. It is the
:21:07. > :21:14.hardest thing that I have probably physically and mentally done.
:21:14. > :21:18.Especially getting down. I know of people that... There are two types
:21:18. > :21:26.of people on Everest. The mountaineers, of which I
:21:26. > :21:31.characterise myself, and then there are the people that want to be
:21:31. > :21:38.climbers. Many of those other people that do not come home. That
:21:38. > :21:43.is the sadness of it. You are clearly a driven man. Given that
:21:43. > :21:51.Everest was literally metaphorically the summit of your
:21:51. > :21:57.ambition, what next? It is a real challenge. No more big mountains.
:21:57. > :22:04.For me, my Everest is there to insure people we have a far greater
:22:04. > :22:10.understanding of it. And as I have done, for many years, used what I
:22:10. > :22:15.have done to help some of those 400 million other disabled people out
:22:15. > :22:19.there in the world that have no access whatsoever to limbs. I guess
:22:20. > :22:25.one of the things I see disability as is a lack of access to resources.
:22:25. > :22:29.Or just bad been keen. In our first World countries, we do not have the
:22:29. > :22:34.lack of resources but in a lot of third-world countries, they do. The
:22:34. > :22:39.one thing I do know is that if I can help in some small way for that
:22:39. > :22:44.to happen, then as long as the thinking is right, which is one of
:22:44. > :22:51.the things that I need to do as well, then the people in life have
:22:51. > :22:57.opportunity. I am interested about the range of mountains. A
:22:57. > :23:04.psychologist who studied mountain's said mountaineers do not feel in
:23:04. > :23:08.control of the motion in their everyday lives. Mountaineering
:23:08. > :23:12.allows them to feel fear and control that the motion. Did you
:23:12. > :23:17.recognise that that is what drives you up mountain's? It is certainly
:23:17. > :23:26.the challenge. The feeling of the fear, I am scared a lot of the time.
:23:26. > :23:33.But then I can be mountain biking as well. I can be going out on to
:23:33. > :23:37.the Velodrome at the Paralympics. For me, it is the environment. And
:23:37. > :23:42.of the mountain's. I do not have to be climbing. For but you have to be
:23:42. > :23:45.challenging yourself? Yes but it is more about also been in the
:23:45. > :23:50.mountains. I love the idea of talent because I understand it
:23:50. > :23:54.brings real achievement into your life. I am not very good at sports
:23:54. > :24:00.which are pure competition, where you have to beat someone. That is