Special feat: Arunima with Bachendri Pal

Sincere apologies.

Arunima Sinha, you are not just India’s first but the world’s only (amputee) woman to have made the mammoth and majestic Everest bow to you high spirit and grit.

The climber’s mentor organisation Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF) on Wednesday said in no uncertain terms that her achievement was globally exclusive till date.

“There was some confusion over whether Arunima is the first woman with a prosthetic limb to reach the summit of Everest at 29,029 feet. An article on the Internet about Rhonda Graham had created the confusion. I wrote to Pelt Tiffany, the author of the piece that appeared on the website of KCBD news network. Tiffany has confirmed that no woman amputee has scaled the Everest, which makes Arunima the first one to do so,” TSAF secretary K.K. Kapadia said.

He further clarified that Graham, a 61-year-old US national and left-leg amputee like Arunima, had only managed to reach the base camp in October 2011.

Dr Arvind Insan, a Sirsa-based adventure researcher, also confirmed that the 26-year-old Lucknow girl was the first woman amputee in the world to conquer Everest. “I have browsed the Net thoroughly and concluded that Graham could not go beyond the base camp,” he said over phone from Sirsa, Haryana.

The TSAF had also sought confirmation on the matter from Kathmandu-based Asian Trekking Agency, which conducted the Eco Everest Diamond Jubilee Everest Expedition 2013.

The agency said Elizabeth Hawley’s office in Kathmandu did not have any details of an Everest climb by Graham. Hawley has been the living encyclopaedia on all Everest summit shows over the years.

The agency further said that Graham had lost her leg in 1980 because of Staph (bacteria) infection and underwent knee replacement. For the next 25 years, she moved on crutches because infections and surgeries prevented her from getting a prosthetic limb.

Arunima, on the other had, lost her left leg when she was thrown off a moving train in 2011. But, at 10.55am on Tuesday, she made history by annexing the world’s tallest peak along with sherpas Nima Kancha Sherpa and Pemba Tshering.