Facing fear on Everest
LOOK CLOSELY at Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and you’ll notice the marks of adventure.
A gash in his dress shoe relieves pressure on an old frostbite wound – the skin graft, he says, fell off in the bath years ago and it’s been painful ever since.
The fingertips of his left hand went the same way.
Mummified by frostbite, the digits were sawn off with a fretsaw in the garage by an impatient Fiennes and his late wife Ginny, months before a scheduled operation.
If he felt pain or saw blood, the blade would be moved closer to the blackened tips.
“I do remember the thumb took two days because the bone was much thicker than the other ones,” he says without sentiment, as though talking about salami sliced for a sandwich.
“After I had all five on the table, I couldn’t throw them away – I’d had them for over 50 years.”
More than his battle wounds, Fiennes’ eyes share the
