Man with one leg ready for 23,000ft climb

Nov 10 2007 by Caroline Innes, Liverpool Daily Post

CLIMBING a 23,000ft mountain would be a tough enough challenge for even the most daring and fittest of mountaineers.

For Matthew Ramsay, however, who lost his lower left leg in an horrific vehicle accident, taking on the highest peak in the Americas should be near-impossible but he regards it as “pure good fun”.

Eight people have died in the last four months on the slopes of the 7,000m-high Aconcagua in the Andes on the Argentina-Chile border, and only one person in 20 who attempts the climb reaches the summit.

Yet the 29-year-old from Bootle, is unfazed – saying that his accident in 2001 gave him a new lease of life and has taught him that human endeavour and achievement has no limits.

He said: “Before my accident I didn’t ever challenge myself like this or do half the physical activity I do now.

“I used to work as a road liner and now I am an outdoor pursuits instructor doing anything and everything that I can.

“Losing my leg has really given me a new lease of life.

“I don’t know whether it is that I feel like I have something to prove as I now have got a bit of an ‘all or nothing’ attitude to life.

“But it has made me realise that life is for living and for challenging yourself.

“And now I think that if I injure my leg I can just get a new one.”

His training has involved climbing in the French Alps, the Lake District, Scotland, Wales and many hours in the gym in preparation for the 19-day ordeal, starting on January 10.

The gruelling expedition will combine climbing and hiking carrying a 25kg backpack.

Each day, Mr Ramsay and the team will set up camp, using it as base to climb higher, before returning to recuperate and repeating the process .

It will be tough for the team but Mr Ramsay is as committed to raising as much as he can for the Cambodia Trust, which helps rehabilitate landmine victims and provide them with prosthetics, as he is on making the summit.

Mr Ramsay said: “I was fortunate to travel to Cambodia and it really was an unforgettable experience.

“One day in Phnom Pen – the country’s capital – I met a man who told me about his wife who had to have her leg amputated after walking on a landmine.

“He asked me to help him and asked whether his wife could have my spare leg, which I was carrying in my rucksack.

“The experience had such a lasting impression on me that I couldn’t go on with my life without helping the situation in Cambodia in some way.

“There are still between five to 10 million unexploded landmines in Cambodia.

“What I am attempting is nothing compared to what these people are facing in their country daily.”

He knows he will be facing extreme danger and has been warned that at that altitude helicopter evacuations, if one of the team is injured or gets altitude sickness, are an impossibility. But Mr Ramsay is confident he will make it, adding: “Losing my leg has not stopped me from doing anything. After two-years intensive rehabilitation I am stronger, fitter and more positive than ever. I will get to the summit.

“Knowing I am raising money for people who have lost limbs but do not have access to the care that I have been given is incentive enough to get me to the top.”

Matthew has so far raised £655 but needs help to reach his £3,000 target. Anyone who would like to make a donation can do so at www.justgiving.com/mattramsayclimb or to donate directly to the Cambodia Trust visit www.cambodiatrust.org.uk

carolineinnes