On a cold night in 2011, a young national-level volleyball player lay alone on railway tracks, her life split into a before and an after she could never have imagined. That young woman was Arunima Sinha, and the story that began with unimaginable pain would eventually end at the highest point on Earth. She remembers the moment with chilling clarity. Thieves in a general compartment tried to snatch the gold chain she was wearing. When she resisted, they pushed her out of a moving train. The impact was brutal. Before she could even comprehend what had happened, another train passed over her leg. “When I tried to lift myself up, I saw my legs were cut off by the train,” she later recalled. Scroll down to read more...
All night, she cried for help on the tracks. No one came. In unbearable pain, unable to move or see clearly, she lay there as passing trains thundered by. Small rats roaming the tracks began biting at her injured body, a detail so haunting that it captures the sheer helplessness of that night better than any statistic ever could.
By morning, she was finally taken to Bareilly District Hospital in Uttar Pradesh. What awaited her there was another battle. Doctors discussed the lack of blood and anaesthesia. She could not see much, but she could hear everything. Despite the agony, Arunima made a decision that revealed the steel within her.
She fervently expressed to the medical team that if she had the strength to endure an entire night lying on the railway tracks, then she surely had the wherewithal to make it through the surgery as well. With courage and determination, she implored them to proceed with the amputation of her leg, believing it to be a necessary measure to preserve her life. In a remarkable display of solidarity, the doctors and even a nearby pharmacist stepped forward, selflessly donating their own blood in order to aid her during this critical time. Ultimately, her leg was amputated without the use of anaesthesia, a decision borne out of the urgent circumstances. However, the physical agony she experienced was only the beginning of her trials.
Twenty-five days later, while still recovering, she read newspaper headlines claiming she had attempted suicide because of poverty or family rejection. The narrative hurt more deeply than her wounds.
Instead of breaking her, it ignited something powerful.
“This is their time,” she thought. “Soon my time will come. I will prove everyone wrong.”
Confined to a hospital bed with a missing leg and multiple spinal fractures, unsure whether she would ever walk again, Arunima decided she would do something extraordinary: she would climb Mount Everest.
Many advised her to accept a “normal life", find a desk job, and move on. But her brother became her strongest pillar, encouraging her to meet Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to summit Everest in 1984.
When Arunima had the opportunity to meet the renowned mountaineer Pal shortly after her discharge from the hospital, he listened intently to her inspiring story. As he heard her recount her journey, tears filled his eyes, and he offered her a profound statement that would resonate deeply within her: the mere act of dreaming about conquering Everest, especially under her challenging circumstances, was in itself a monumental victory. In her heart, with all the determination she possessed, she had already achieved the monumental feat of climbing that daunting mountain.
After her family, Bachendri Pal became the first person to truly believe she could do it.
The real test, however, began on the mountains.
Simple distances became enormous challenges. A stretch that normally took climbers two minutes took Arunima nearly three hours. Her prosthetic leg slipped repeatedly, her injured body resisted every step, and doubts surrounded her. Yet within eight months of relentless training, the same climbers who once asked her to slow down began asking in amazement how she moved so fast.
Throughout the entire Everest expedition, peril seemed to be an ever-present companion, lurking around every corner. The stunning blue-green ice sheets, although captivating in photographs, posed a lethal threat in reality, causing her prosthetic leg to unexpectedly slip in precarious moments. She couldn’t shake off the haunting sight of frozen bodies belonging to climbers who had tragically never made it back down. There was even a moment when her trusted Sherpa, displaying deep concern, recommended that they turn back as their oxygen levels fell to dangerously low rates near the infamous Hillary Step, which was alarmingly close to the summit.
But Arunima refused
The arduous journey of the climb had demanded an incredible amount of effort and extensive sponsorship, totaling nearly ₹60–70 lakh. More significantly, it had also required years of emotional resilience and personal struggle. She held a firm belief that the body ultimately conforms to the aspirations and direction of the mind.
“Disability is not physical,” she said later. “If the brain works, nothing can stop you. But if the mind gives up, even a healthy body becomes handicapped.”
In a remarkable display of determination and resilience, Arunima Sinha accomplished an extraordinary feat in 2013 by standing atop Mount Everest, thereby earning the title of the first Indian female amputee to ever reach this iconic summit. Even in the midst of her grueling ascent, as her oxygen supply dwindled dangerously low, she made the conscious decision to document her journey through photographs and videos. She held the profound belief that should she not survive the treacherous descent, her powerful message and inspiring story would still resonate and reach the youth of India.
Her story, later shared widely including in an INKtalks YouTube talk, became more than a tale of mountaineering. It became a testament to human resilience.
From a hospital bed, where the very essence of survival hung by a thread and remained uncertain, Arunima embarked on a remarkable journey that ultimately led her to ascend to the towering peaks of the world. In the year 2015, she was honored with the prestigious
Padma Shri award, which is recognized as India’s fourth-highest civilian honor. This accolade stands as a testament not solely to her extraordinary achievement in conquering a mountain, but also to her profound ability to redefine what is considered possible in the face of overwhelming adversity.
Her journey reminds us that courage is not the absence of pain; it is the decision to rise despite it. Because sometimes, the greatest summit a person conquers is not Everest, but the voice inside that refuses to surrender.