Tag: Amputee

69-year-old double amputee from China summits Everest

Xia Boyu of China, who lost both his feet during a failed Everest attempt in 1975, and later had both legs amputated due to cancer, finally reached the summit on prosthetic limbs yesterday on his fifth attempt.

Justin Housman, reporting at the Adventure Journal:

Last December, the Nepalese government wrote a new rule banning double amputees from obtaining permits to climb Everest. At the time, it seemed like it was the end of Chinese climber and amputee Xia Boyu’s decades-long quest to summit the world’s highest peak. But on Monday, that quest was realized.

And

On Monday morning, Xia finally reached the summit, along with a team of Sherpas. Xia is the first double amputee to reach Everest’s peak from the Nepal route; a fellow double amputee from New Zealand named Mark Inglis summited from the Tibet route in 2006.

More:

Climber Who Lost Both Feet While Climbing Everest Finally Summits It 43 Years Later – Adventure Sports Network

New rules bar single, blind, and double amputees from climbing Everest

We start off the year with news of new regulations out of Kathmandu, Nepal. The motivation is obviously one of safety, however this will be controversial.

From The Himalayan Times:

The government has revised the Mountaineering Expedition Regulation under the Tourism Act barring people with complete blindness and double amputation, as well as those proven medically unfit for climbing, from attempting to scale mountains.

The Council of Ministers which passed the revised regulation yesterday also stated that Sirdars, mountain guides and high-altitude workers, who accompany expeditions to the top of the climbing peaks, including Mt Everest, shall get summit certificates.

More coverage by Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN:

Nepal has amended its mountaineering regulations, prohibiting foreign individual climbers from scaling all mountains in the country without an escort.

Double amputee and blind climbers are also banned (with the exception of those who obtain medical certificates) as part of the new guidelines, which were implemented in a bid to reduce accidents and climbing-related deaths.