When British Army soldier Hari Budha Magar lost both legs to a Taliban bomb, he thought his life was as good as over.
But 15 years on, the veteran Gurkha has not only over triumphed over his mental and physical traumas – but has scaled the highest peaks on all seven continents.
At 10pm on Tuesday, Mr Magar, 46, completed his astonishing feat within seven years when he reached the top of Mount Vinson in Antarctica, 16,050 feet (4,892m) above sea level.
He had to travel 400 miles inland on the frozen continent, due south of the tip of Chile, and complete a gruelling three-day climb at -25C (-13F) to get there. It was a long way from his home in Canterbury, Kent.
But it means the father of three has become the first double above-knee amputee to conquer the highest peak on every continent – and one of only around 500 people in total.
His mission is to both raise awareness of disability, and ‘inspire others to climb their own mountain – whatever that might be’. He is raising a fortune for charity, too.
After getting his breath back from his final summit, Mr Magar said: ‘The climb was very tough, I was literally crawling on all fours, battling my way up the mountain.
‘Climbing the rocky summit ridge, I was able to take in the incredible views where spectacular Antarctic mountain peaks pierced a thin layer of cloud below.
Hari Budha Magar raises his ice picks in victory at the summit of Mount Vinson in Antarctica
Mr Magar was selected for the highly competitive Gurkhas brigade in 1999
The veteran receives his MBE for services to disability awareness from the Princess Royal at Windsor Castle in 2024
‘My message to the world is to everyone, whether living with a disability or able-bodied anything is possible with enough determination.
‘Yes, you might need to adapt your approach, get help, or think differently, but you can do it. A disability shouldn’t limit the size of your dream, or your ability to achieve it. If a family man like me from Canterbury can do it, why can’t anyone else?’
Along with all members of Britain’s Brigade of Gurkhas, Mr Magar, who was born in a cowshed, was recruited in his native Nepal, one of just 230 selected out of 12,000 applicants in 1999.
He duly got on his first plane to begin training at barracks near Folkestone in Kent.
Assigned to the Royal Gurkha Rifles, tours of duty ensued in Kenya, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
The adventurer gets a taste for the high life on Mont Blanc in 2019
In 2020, he conquered Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the highest peak in Africa
Mr Magar and two fellow climbers at the summit of Mount Everest, a feat that had been a childhood ambition of the former Gurkha
In April 2010 he was sent to Afghanistan’s hellish Helmand province – and a fortnight later his Army career was over.
Mr Magar has recalled: ‘It was a sunrise patrol, surveying a new area to set up cameras and assess a damaged well so local people could have water.’ He was the last of ten men following in the footsteps of a soldier with a metal detector. As their path skirted an opium poppy field, the ground exploded under him.
Mr Magar recalled: ‘I remember ringing in my right ear and dust everywhere. My right leg was gone. My left was dangling – just bone and skin.’
He felt he had failed his wife and young son in Britain, and daughter in Nepal, along with his parents living in a house he built for them in capital Kathmandu.
Mr Magar and a companion climber celebrate on the top of Denali, in Alaska in 2024
The following year he reached the top of Aconcagua in Argentina…
… and months later he achieved his penultimate climbing challenge, reaching the summit of Puncak Jaya in Indonesia
But after amputation, attempting suicide, and numbing himself with painkillers and alcohol, he spent ten months learning to walk on prosthetic legs. And the fearless Gurkha found a new purpose in adventure.
He started with a skydive, then skiing, before deciding to fulfil his childhood ambition of climbing Mount Everest, in his homeland.
‘I remembered the Gurkha motto, ‘Better to die than be a coward’,’ he has said. After build-ups in the Alps and Africa, he conquered world’s highest mountain in May 2023, overturning a legal ban on the disabled to do so.
Before completing his challenge this week, using prosthetics specially adapted for ice and snow, Mr Magar had already been awarded an MBE.
