who is the first double amputee to reach the Summit of Everest?

Mark Inglis, a mountaineer from New Zealand, was the first double amputee to reach the summit of Mount Everest. He did it on May 15, 2006, climbing from the Tibet (north) side. Inglis had lost both legs below the knee to frostbite years earlier, during a climbing accident on Mount Cook in New Zealand in 1982.

So if you're searching for the very first person, full stop, that's Mark Inglis. But the story gets more interesting once you dig into "first from which route" and "first with which type of amputation," because three different climbers hold three different records here.

Mark Inglis: The Original First

Inglis reached the summit on 15 May 2006, becoming the first double amputee ever to stand on top of Everest. He used specially built carbon-fiber prosthetic legs for the climb, which came from the Tibetan side of the mountain rather than the more commonly used Nepal side. The only other double amputee to have summited Everest was Mark Inglis from New Zealand in 2006 from the peak's Tibet side.

His accident happened decades before his Everest attempt. He lost both legs below the knee to frostbite after being trapped in a snow cave during a 1982 climb on Mount Cook, New Zealand's tallest peak.

Xia Boyu: First From the Nepal (South) Side

A separate record belongs to Xia Boyu, a Chinese climber who summited on 14 May 2018, becoming the first double amputee to reach the top from Nepal's south side. On 14 May 2018, 69-year-old Xia Boyu became the first double amputee to summit Everest from the south side.

Xia's story stretches back even further than Inglis's. In 1975, Xia's feet had to be amputated due to frostbite while attempting to scale Everest, and in 1996, his legs were amputated below the knee due to cancer. He tried and failed on multiple attempts over the decades, including a heartbreaking near-miss. In 2016, he was only 94 meters away from Everest's top when a wind storm held the climbing team back. He finally summited on his fifth attempt, 43 years after his first.

A quirk worth knowing: Xia almost wasn't allowed to try. In December 2017, authorities introduced safety regulations barring climbers who are disabled, blind, below the age of 16, or intending to climb solo, and Xia was permitted to climb only after Nepalese courts judged the regulations as discriminatory in early 2018.

Hari Budha Magar: First Double Above-Knee Amputee

There's a third name that often gets mixed into this search: Hari Budha Magar, a former Gurkha soldier in the British Army. He summited Everest in May 2023, but his record is specific to amputation type rather than route. Hari Budha Magar became the first double above-the-knee amputee to summit the world's tallest mountain.

This distinction matters because above-knee amputations remove more of the leg and leave far less muscle to work with, making the physical demands of high-altitude climbing considerably harder. Budha Magar lost both his legs in Afghanistan after stepping on an explosive device while serving as a Gurkha soldier. Like Xia, he had to fight the same Nepali climbing ban in court before he could attempt the peak. In December 2017, the government in Nepal created a law banning solo climbers, double amputees and blind people from climbing Everest, and Magar said the law had to be fought in court.

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