Everest ascent costs New Zealand double amputee more leg

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2006

WELLINGTON (AFP) — New Zealand double amputee Mark Inglis' historic ascent of Mt Everest this year has cost him another three centimetres (1.2 inches) off each leg, reports say. Inglis spent several months in hospital after scaling the world's highest mountain in May and returning home with frostbitten fingers as well as damage to the stumps of his legs, which he lost in a mountaineering mishap in 1982.

Both stumps have since been shortened by a further 3cm, and parts of five fingers have been removed. "When you lose your legs when you're 23, then something like this is just a minor hiccup, just a bump in the journey, really," Inglis told the New Zealand Herald. Although a new artificial leg has been fitted to his left stump, he is confined to a wheelchair while his right...