Hot off the presses is this harrowing yet inspirational book by Scottish climber Jamie Andrew who lost both hands and feet in a tragic accident in the Alps but has learned to climb and live again
In January 1999, climber Jamie Andrew and his friend Jamie Fisher
were trapped high on Les Droites above Chamonix for five days by a
savage winter storm.
Rescuers were unable to get to them due to high winds and
temperatures dropped as low as minus 30C. By the time they were
rescued, Fisher was dead and horrific cold injuries meant that Andrew
lost both his hands and feet to severe frostbite.
'Life and Limb' is Jamie Andrew's account of that experience, but
more importantly, his hard fought recovery and rehabilitation. He
learned to walk again using prosthetic legs within three months of
the accident and since then has run the London marathon, skiied,
boarded, paraglided and taken up caving.
He's also returned to climbing, has summited Kilimanjaro and even
got back on the rock. We haven't read the book in its entirety - but
we will and a full review will follow - but just dipping into it.,
it's clearly a painstakingly honest, sometimes painful but vivid and
fluent account both of Jamie's accident, the immediate aftermath with
all the associated guilt and conflicting emotions and his adaptation
to life without hands and feet.
Its sometimes harrowing to read, but fascinating at the same time
- the chapter about phantom limb pain for example - and incredibly
positive and devoid of self pity: 'What a bizarre year 1999 had been
for me,' he writes. 'Certainly it was a year of tragedy disaster,
tears and despair, but it hadn't been all bad. In fact, for me a lot
of it had been very positive ... I had certainly been on a hell of a
journey that year and in many ways it had been a thoroughly
enrichening experience.
'In one year I had found out more about my physical and emotional
limits than I had throughout my years of climbing. I had learnt so
much about myself over the previous twelve months, and I hoped in
some ways I was a better person now than I had been a year ago'.
It takes someone pretty remarkable to think like that and it's an inspirational
story that's well worth reading.
'Life and Limb' is out now in hardback by Portrait
Books, priced £17.95.
