Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Crippled Monkey is feeling just a bit uncomfortable about a news story I've just discovered.

Here at Ouch, the stereotype of the brave disabled mountain-climber is a bit of a running gag, just like it is for many disabled people. Barely a week seems to go by now when there isn't another disabled adventurer making their way to the top of Mount Everest, That's why the story of New Zealand climber , who last week became the first ever double amputee to reach the Everest summit, didn't register much on our radar.

But there's another story behind Inglis' achievement, and it's a more . During the final push for the summit, Inglis passed a British climber, David Sharp, who was clearly dying from oxygen deprivation, but left him there on the side of the mountain. As of two days ago, Sharp's body remained on the mountain.

Inglis has defended his actions, saying: "Trouble is, at 8,500m it's extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone anyone else alive." To be fair to him, he also points out that: "On that morning, over 40 people went past that young Brit. I was one of the first. We radioed [our expedition manager] who said, 'Look, you can't do anything. He's been there a number of hours, without oxygen. He's effectively dead'." Yet a medical scientist has been quoted as saying that if Sharp had been given oxygen by another climber, he could have "recovered up to 80 per cent of his capacity".

Apart from thinking that the critics who are currently condemning the excessive numbers of climbers now scaling Everest - and that includes those 'brave' disabled folk - might have a point, Crippled Monkey can't help thinking: would there have been ten times more controversy and outrage if the boot had been on the other (prosthetic) foot? What if Mark Inglis had been the one in trouble, and other climbers had passed him by? One thing's for certain - I'm just going to stick to leisurely walks for my brave and heroic deeds, thank you very much.