Motivational speaker Mark Inglis was sharing some of his life experiences, and the lessons he had learnt from them, with Lincoln University staff and the public yesterday.
Mark, a Lincoln University alumnus, is a mountaineer as well as researcher, winemaker, and Paralympic athlete.
He lost both of his legs at in 1982 when trapped for 14 days in an ice cave on Mt Cook.
He has gone on to be the first double amputee to summit Mount Everest, in 2006, as well as win New Zealand’s first Paralympic cycling medal, a silver in Sydney in 2000.
Mark was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Natural Resources degree by Lincoln, and is an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit (ONZM).
He is Patron of Cambodia Trust NZ, NZ/Nepalese Foundation and Founding Trustee of Limbs4All Charitable Trust.
He related how he is involved in creating some of the cycle routes for the Hurunui Trails Trust using quiet country roads rather than having to go out and spend tens-of-millions to build cycleways.
He also told of his charity work, providing all-terrain wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs in Nepal and Cambodia.
Mark said disability should never define a life and how “attitude is everything” in being able to deal with the challenges which may be set before you, in an “accidental journey” through life.
