Posted on 06/08/2022 6:04:36 PM PDT by nickcarraway
CNA spoke to Ravichandran Tharumalingam after his successful summit attempt on May 5. He described the achievement as a way to “conquer old demons”.
The then-42-year-old was so keenly focused on summiting Mount Everest for the second time in two years that his euphoria distracted him from a slight tingling sensation in his fingers. He had successfully reached the mountain's peak for the first time in 2006.
Ravichandran or Ravi as he prefers to be called, eventually reached the top of the world’s highest mountain once more, but this time at a cost. The tips of eight of his fingers had to be later amputated due to frostbite.
“I believe it was something to do with (prioritising) desire over being rational. I was so desperate to prove a point, I was pushing myself too much that I ignored the pain in my fingers,” he recounted.
(Excerpt) Read more at channelnewsasia.com ...
You win the thread!
Reinhold Messner, probably the greatest mountain climber who ever lived, only has three toes left. Frostbite in the Himalayas claimed the rest (and it didn’t slow his climbing in the least).
Ranulph Fiennes, legendary arctic explorer, and who also summited Everest at age 65, self-amputated the tips of all the fingers on one hand because frostbite had rendered them necrotic but his doctor wouldn’t perform the medical amputation on Sir Ranulph’s timetable.
If it weren’t for the thrill of the risk they’re taking, people like this wouldn’t do these things.
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