|
Amputee climber loses fingertips
09/06/2006 11:24 - (SA)
Wellington - Mark Inglis, the first person with both legs amputated to climb Mount Everest, has had three fingertips removed and frostbite cut from his leg stumps, a newspaper reported on Friday.
New Zealander Inglis, who scaled 8 848-metre Everest on May 15, had frostbite removed from two fingers on his right hand, one on his left, and from his leg stumps in an operation on Thursday at Christchurch Hospital on South Island, the surgeon told the Christchurch Press newspaper.
Plastic and reconstructive surgeon Sally Langley said the operation was straightforward and had gone to plan.
Dry gangrene
"We amputated three fingers to just above the middle phalanx," Langley was quoted as saying in the paper. "If there is dry gangrene, like there was for Mark, there is no real risk."
Work on Inglis's leg stumps was the most difficult part and may require a further operation, Langley said.
Inglis, 47, became the first double amputee to scale the world's highest mountain, but suffered frostbite during the climb.
The climber had both legs severed just below the knees after suffering frostbite when he was trapped by storms while climbing New Zealand's highest peak, 3 764 metre Mount Cook, in 1982.
Passed dying climber
His Everest climb became mired in controversy when it emerged he was one of at least 40 climbers who passed British climber David Sharp who later died on the mountain without stopping to help him.
Sharp, 34, died in a snow cave 300 metres from the mountain's peak, apparently from oxygen deprivation suffered during his solo descent from the summit.
The circumstances of Sharp's death prompted a stinging rebuke from Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary, who condemned the climbers for leaving the man to die.
Since then, Inglis's expedition leader Russell Brice, who advised his climbers to continue to the summit without attempting a rescue, has said it was a "devastating" decision to leave Sharp.
- AP
|
News
