Jamie Andrew on his way up Ben Nevis
A mountaineer whose climbing partner was killed in an incident which led to his own arms and legs being amputated will speak about his experiences.
Jamie Andrew and his friend Jamie Fisher were caught unexpectedly in a vicious storm while climbing the North Face of Les Droites in the French Alps in 1999.
The pair were trapped on the mountain for five days in temperatures as low as –30C and windspeeds of 130kph (80mph). Mr Fisher died the night before a helicopter plucked his companion from the peak.
Mr Andrew told Lissa Cook of Heason Events, which is hosting the show in Buxton next weekend: “Tragically during the final night Jamie Fisher died of hypothermia and I very nearly died too but amazingly I made it through that night and the next morning I was picked up by the helicopter in a traumatic and spectacular rescue in the nick of time.
“But by then I’d suffered extreme frostbite. In fact my hands and my feet were literally frozen solid. About 10 days later my hands and feet – all of them – had to be amputated.”
But the quadruple amputee went on to climb Kilimanjaro; revisit the scene of his accident in the Alps; run the London marathon, and complete an Ironman triathlon. He and his wife Anna now have three children. His motto is that nothing is impossible.
He said: “My rehabilitation was swift but it didn’t seem fast at the time because it was such an incredible period of my life.
“In actual fact it wasn’t the worst time of my life, as you might think, but one of the most rich and rewarding times of my life because every day I was learning to do something I hadn’t done the day before.
“I was learning to feed myself, to wash myself, dress myself, go to the toilet myself, learning to walk again and basically rebuilding everything in my life all over again. I was lucky in that I had fantastic support.”
Jamie Andrew rockclimbing
He added: “The greatest limitations are the ones we put on ourselves. All the challenges we face in life are 95 per cent mental challenges and only 5 per cent other factors so for me not having hands and feet isn’t a particularly big deal.
“As long as I can keep mentally motivated that’s s all that matters, but having that mental strength is often easier said than done. We need to rely on and help each other to make the most of the potential we all have.”
He will give his talk at Buxton Opera House on Sunday 17 June at 7.30pm. Tickets are available on the Heason Events website, along with a full podcast interview by Lissa Cook with the climber.
