Mark Inglis
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Mark Joseph Inglis (born September 27, 1959) is a mountaineer, researcher, winemaker and motivational speaker. He holds a degree in Human Biochemistry from Lincoln University, New Zealand, and has conducted research in leukemia. He won a silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games. He currently resides in Hanmer Springs, New Zealand with his wife Anne and their three children.
Inglis began work as a professional mountaineer in 1979 as a search and rescue mountaineer for Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. In November of 1982, Inglis and climbing partner Philip Doole were stuck in an ice cave high on Aoraki/Mount Cook for 14 days due to an intense blizzard. The ultimate rescue of the two climbers was a major media event in New Zealand. Both men's legs became badly frost bitten while awaiting rescue. Following Inglis' rescue, both his legs were amputated beneath the knee. He returned to Mt. Cook in 2002 and summited successfully on January 7 of that year, after a previous attempt was thwarted by problems with his leg stumps. The summit assault in January 2002 was documented by the film No Mean Feat: The Mark Inglis Story.
In 2003, Inglis received the New Zealand Order of Merit as an Officer in recognition of his services to disabled people. On September 27, 2004, he successfully summitted Cho Oyu with three others, becoming only the second double amputee to summit a mountain greater than 8000 metres in height.
On May 15, 2006, after 40 days of climbing Inglis became the first ever double amputee to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. While acclimatizing at 6,400 metres, a fixed-line anchor failed resulting in Inglis falling. In the fall, he broke one of his carbon fiber prosthetic legs in half. It was temporarily repaired with duct tape while a spare was brought up from base camp. Inglis's Everest expedition was filmed for the Discovery Channel series Everest: Beyond the Limit.
While ascending Inglis came upon a distressed British climber David Sharp but continued pushing towards the summit. Sharp subsequently perished. Inglis has been criticised for this decision, including by Sir Edmund Hillary, who said he would have abandoned any attempt at the summit to help a fellow climber. Inglis has dismissed the criticism by saying that the decision was actually made by expedition leader Russell Brice, who was at the base camp. He also stated that "trouble is at 8,500 metres it's extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone anyone else alive." Some other climbers have agreed with this assessment claiming there is little that can be done for a seriously ill person that close to the summit. However, Phil Ainslie, a scientist and mountaineer at Otago University, has said that it might have been possible to revive Sharp with bottled oxygen and get him to safety.
In an e-mailed statement to the Associated Press on June 10, the expedition leader Russell Brice contradicted comments by Inglis by saying that he only knew David Sharp was in distress when his team contacted him by radio during their descent [1].
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[edit] Current activities
In addition to being a goodwill ambassador for the Everest Rescue Trust, Mark has created a New Zealand based charitable trust Limbs4All ([4]) as well as being a motivational speaker. He has also created a range of sports drinks and super-high energy gels, named PeakFuel.
[edit] Books authored
Inglis has authored four books:
- No Mean Feat documents his entrapment and rescue from Mt. Cook, his successful summit of the same mountain in 2002, and his efforts in the Paralympics
- To the Max: a Teen Reader's Version of No Mean Feat
- Off The Front Foot offers views on coping with positive and negative aspects of life.
- Legs on Everest is a detailed account of his accent of Everest including his climb of Cho Oyu.
[edit] References
- "Double amputee scales Mt Everest", BBC, 16 May 2006.
- information on the documentary of the 2002 summit assault of Mt. Cook
- Information on Cho Oyo summit assault
- "Everest climber defends leaving dying Briton", ABC, 23 May 2006.
- "Sir Ed: 'I would have abandoned climb to save a life'", NZPA, 24 May 2006.
