B.Sc. for climber

Press, 28 April 1989, Page 2

B.Sc. for climber

By

JENNY LONG

One of the two Mount Cook climbers, who made headlines when he and a companion survived for two weeks in atrocious conditions on Mount Cook, will graduate from Lincoln College today. Mark Inglis will receive a bachelor of science de-, gree with first class honours.

During the Mount Cook climb in 1982, he and his companion, Phil Doole, suffered frost bite and later had their lower legs amputated. Bad weather during the climb- had forced them to build a snow' cave for shelter and a rescue was impossible for two weeks. Mr Inglis, who had been a senior mountaineer with.

Mount Cook National Park, returned to the village as duty ranger for two years, “but if I can’t go climbing as a full member of a team, I’d rather not do it.” He has spent the last four years studying for a biochemistry degree and is now working in the haematology unit at Christchurch Hospital and studying for his doctorate. Mr Inglis said the loss of the lower legs and the fitting with artificial limbs was “something you come to terms with.” “When you’re relatively young and fit, once you get your legs off, it’s the end. The decision to leave Mount Cook and attend university was, he says,

“definitely a step into the unknown.” At school, he was an average student. He left, school to work on farms in his home area of Geraldine and develop climbing and ski-ing interests. When he began university study in 1985, he intended to gain a horticulture qualification and possibly go into nursery work. An interest in biochemistry developed and he transferred to a science degree which is shared by Lincoln College and the University of Canterbury. Mr Inglis, aged 29, feels that he succeeded at university, partly because he had done other work before beginning his degree.