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The wife of the Kiwi mountaineer trying to conquer Mount Everest says the fact one of her husband's artificial legs has broken in two is just a small hiccup.
Mark Inglis had stopped to acclimatise part way up the mountain, when one of his fixed-line anchors became free. Inglis is trying to become the first double amputee to climb Mt Everest.
He slid down the mountain snapping his right carbon-fibre leg in half.
Anne Inglis, who has spoken to her husband by satellite phone, says he managed to fix the leg using duct tape until a spare could be brought to him.
She says her husband, who lost both legs to frostbite in a climbing mishap nearly 24 years ago, is fine apart from a slight cold. She says Mark told her by satellite phone that it was "a minor hiccup" and he was continuing his attempt on the world's highest peak.
Inglis, 47, is about 6,400 metres up the mountain and still acclimatising and preparing to move up to Camp Two, which is about 7,500 metres.
She says Mark had been able to hop and to fix the carbon fibre leg well enough to get to climbing companions, and he then rebuilt it with spare parts.
He had a cold and lost his voice and has found the climb "a lot harder than he thought it would be", after climbing Cho Oyu, the world's sixth highest mountain at 8,201 metres, in September 2004.
Anne says some other groups of climbers had turned back, unable to complete the climb, "but he's going on at the moment".
Inglis was a mountain rescue guide when he and fellow countryman Phil Doole both had their legs amputated below the knees after being trapped in an ice cave for 14 days by a blizzard in November 1982 on New Zealand's Mount Cook.
He resumed mountaineering after being fitted with carbon-fibre prosthetic legs and climbed Mount Cook 3,754 metres in 2002 before conquering Cho Oyu two years later.
