Win: Arunima Sinha is first Indian amputee to scale Mount Everest

Former national-level volleyball player Arunima Sinha, who had lost her right leg after she was thrown off a moving train, created history on Tuesday by becoming the first Indian amputee to climb Mount Everest. Sinha, a resident of Ambedkar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, scaled the world’s highest peak this morning at 10:55 am. [caption id=“attachment_801979” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mt Everest[/caption] Arunima Sinha lost her one leg after she was thrown out of a moving train. Nearly two years after the tragedy struck, she conquered Mount Everest - the world’s highest peak at 8,848 metres above sea level. “When I was undergoing treatment at AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) for four months, I could not do anything on my own. But then one day I decided to climb the Everest,” Sinha told reporters. If successful, Sinha would become the first differently-abled Indian woman to achieve the feat, which she plans to attempt with an artificial limb. A 61-year-old American woman Rhonda Graham, a left-leg amputee, climbed Mount Everest in October 2011. Sinha, 26, started her expedition on 1 April with Susen Mahto, a mountaineer from Jharkhand, with whom she successfully scaled the 6,622-metre Mount Chhamser Kangri in Ladakh in 2012. Both have been trained by Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest. Pal, who is also the chief of Tata Steel Adventure Foundation, said: “A year and a half ago, Arunima called me and expressed her desire to climb Everest. I could not believe that she wanted to do it without one leg.” Sinha lost her leg in 2011 after she was thrown out of a moving train for resisting a robbery attempt. With IANS inputs