Arunima Sinha, the first amputee to climb Mount Everest. The inspiration behind her success story is cricketer Yuvraj Singh. Arunima Sinha is the first female to climb Mount Everest in the world. She is from Ambedkar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, India. Arunima Sinha had qualified as a Head Constable in the CISL in 2012. She was born in 1988 and was a national-level volleyball player.
Train accident
Arunima sinha at the Padmavati Express train in the city of Lucknow for Delhi on 11 April 2011. Thieves who tried to steal her purse and gold chain drove her out of a general train coach. She told us about the crash, “I refused, and they pulled me out of the track. I couldn’t move. I recall seeing a train come in to see me. I managed to stand up. By then the train had passed over my leg.
Another train parallel to her track smashed her leg below the knee when she collapsed on the railway track. She rushed to the hospital with serious leg and pelvic injuries. Arunima sinha lost her leg after doctors amputated it to save her life.
Inspiration
Arunima Sinha was still being treated at the India Institute of Medical Sciences when she was still on the run at the India Institute for Clinics. Arunima Sinha decided to climb Mount Everest and inspired cricket player Yuvraj Singh, who successfully battled with cancer, “to do something about her life. She excelled in Uttarkashi, Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, and inspired Everest by her elder brother, Omprakash, to climb with a prosthetic knee.
She made a promise that everyone would consider unlikely, as she laid in the hospital bed with one leg amputated. Her ambition was not only to become adept at walking on a prosthetic leg from that day on but to climb the highest point in the world—Mount Everest. It was a feat—which many would think impossible—that not only gave her self-confidence back but also made her an inspiration back home for others. Arunima Sinha was a force to reckon with even before the horrific accident which left her an amputee.
Arunima Sinha realized she was not going to cower down, but to strike back. “At the moment, I was unfortunate and people always see me with their kindness. Their eyes. There and there, I determined that I must do anything to show myself, and the only choice was mountaineering. It was the only one.
There was no hope of saying sorry. If you make a mistake, life will be the one to say sorry to you,”
Training
Arunima Sinha consistently trained in the mountains in the regions of Srijani Ganguly for the next two years. For her, there was no Sunday, no Diwali and no Holi”. There should be nothing to waver her from her target. Her first feat was wrought with injury on the way to the summit. She was so excited to have entered the base camp that in the end, she lost her composure and dropped to the ground, hurting herself. In reality, errors came and went on the way to the top.
On the walk, there were several points where no ladders were available to help her to the other side of the broad gap. In such cases, she was forced to leap through holes which would have ended her life if she failed. She once reached a point where her legs gave way.
She fell to the ground as people in the line behind her were making a mess over the delay. One man asked her to keep going, ceaselessly. He surged ahead as Arunima Sinha put herself outside the queue, overtaking many in the process.
It was here that She had an epiphany of sorts as well. She praised everyone who was making fun of her, calling her nuts. “When I was gone to my bed in my hospital, I generally felt terrible when someone called me psychotic. Everest is scalable. But right now when people are calling me I’m nuts about my priorities. I feel content. Now I know that if people say you’re nuts about your goal, that means that your goal is near.”
The 27th edition (2016) of the Limca Book of Records featured Arunima Sinha as one of the ‘People of the Year.’
Source: Times Applaud