Confined to wheelchair but Aussie is high-flier

A WHEELCHAIR-BOUND Australian who reached Everest base camp under his own power said yesterday he was “humbled” to be the first paraplegic to make the gruelling journey mostly unaided.

Scott Doolan, 28, took 10 days to reach the foot of the world’s highest peak.

He suffered a stress fracture while navigating the rocky terrain and extreme altitude — in his wheelchair where possible, on his hands and occasionally being carried.

Doolan reached the camp, 5,364 meters above sea level, on Sunday, taking barely longer than many able-bodied trekkers.

“I was struggling to breathe at that time because I was walking on my hands but I just remember looking up and seeing a crowd of about 20 people. Once I actually got there they all started cheering and that was pretty damn humbling,” Doolan said of the moment he reached base camp.

Walking on his hands, in a technique he dubbed “wheelbarrowing,” Doolan wore through five pairs of gloves during the trek. And on day seven, one of the front wheels of his wheelchair snapped off.

“I was pretty devastated. I was just sitting by myself on a rock, thinking how am I going to do this now,” Doolan said in the Nepali capital Kathmandu.

The team tied a rope to the broken side of the wheelchair to stop it tipping. But negotiating the narrow and sheer paths became even more fraught.

Doolan — who has been confined to a wheelchair since he broke his spine in a motorbike accident aged 17 — spent eight months training for the trek. He did daily cardiovascular and strength training to build upper body strength.

Doolan wants to swim for Australia in the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.