Fahad Badar is the first Arab to summit Mount Everest and Lhotse in a single expedition.
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00:00Qatari mountaineer Fahad Bada has reached heights many believed were impossible.
00:08He's the first Arab to summit both Mount Everest and Lhotse, the first and fourth highest peaks
00:15in the world in a single attempt.
00:18And just 10 months after losing four of his fingers and almost his life, Fahad defied
00:24the odds by climbing to the top of K2.
00:29They said I will never climb again, and I will never be able to climb any mountain.
00:35I challenged them and I said I'll climb K2, and here I am, on top of K2.
00:43A shining example of the power of resilience, Fahad's achievements serve as a beacon of
00:49hope to anyone battling mental or physical obstacles.
00:59Fahad, I've brought you here to a traditional majlis, the origins of which run deep in
01:08Qatari culture.
01:09It's a place for people to come together, to chat, perhaps share a meal.
01:15Can you describe to me how your culture, your heritage fuels your passion?
01:21I have been passionate about mountains for a very long time, and living in Qatar, which
01:26is a flat country with deserts, gave me interest of how can I do something more, how can I
01:32be going higher.
01:34And I think a trip to Nepal in 2003 was the first time I got introduced to mountaineering.
01:40You hear about climbing legends, you hear about climbing trips.
01:43I remember doing a circuit and hiking there in the mountains and looking at the high mountains,
01:47and at that time I did not know what shoes to wear, what, like, clothes to wear.
01:52At first I was suffering, but then I started enjoying that suffering, enjoying the altitude,
01:58enjoying the weather, enjoying the basic life that I lived there, living in a city all of
02:03my life since my childhood.
02:05You don't consider yourself a professional mountaineer, and yet you did become the first
02:11Arab ever to conquer both Everest and Lhotse in a single attempt.
02:17Back in 2021, your life changed when you were descending Broad Peak, a mountain in the Karakoram
02:24range.
02:25You suffered frostbite and lost four of your fingers.
02:30Can you take us back to that event?
02:32I consider myself a tourist mountaineer, as I depend on guides, I depend on expedition
02:37companies to support me.
02:38So in 2021, I decided to climb K2, the Savage Mountain, the second highest mountain in the
02:44world.
02:45To do that, I wanted to climb Broad Peak first, which is just next to it.
02:49I had prepared very well, I had all of my risk calculation, I had everything planned.
02:54I reached the summit late, and coming back, I was stuck at a certain area near the summit
02:59because of another climber who descended in a rope and she got stuck, I ran out of oxygen.
03:05I spent the night at an area near the summit where I was not aware where I was.
03:10I was hallucinating.
03:11I was alone.
03:12I was not sure where to go.
03:14I remember hearing my daughter, Maryam, telling me, Baba, don't die, Baba, come back.
03:19And I think the voice of my daughter in my head, and seeing her, visualizing her at that
03:24time while I'm hallucinating, kept me awake, kept me saying, I don't want to go in the
03:29coma.
03:30It was not until the morning where the sun came out and I started finding the way.
03:34I saw one of the Pakistani guides and I started walking with him to Camp 3.
03:37This is the time where I discovered that I'm alive, I was lost in the mountains alone,
03:41and this is where I noticed my hand and the darkness in my hand.
03:45And after that, my life changed forever.
03:48An amazing story, inspirational and challenging.
03:53And what now, how did you start to adapt to this new way of being?
03:58When I realized that I would be losing my finger, of course, like any normal human being,
04:03I got into the five stages of denial, five stages of disbelief.
04:08So eventually I got into a depression where I was thinking, how can I continue my life?
04:13So I have a decision to make to myself, either live in denial or live in sadness and think
04:20that this will change my life, or just accept it.
04:24And this is where I decided this will not stop me.
04:27Going back to the mountains, I had to learn how to hold ropes again, how to wear the crampons
04:32using one and a half hands.
04:34So the adaption was in the way that I climb.
04:37Like I had prosthetics, but the problem is prosthetics, you cannot use them in altitude
04:40with all the heavy gloves you are wearing and everything.
04:43But I know that I needed to use my legs, how I can use the notches and rocks to climb using
04:49my legs more, and using my right hand strength to compensate for my left hand, and even sometimes
04:56using my elbows and other areas to climb.
04:59But disability is not a barrier to achievements.
05:03And this is what I believed in.
05:07Change of scenery here at Aspatar Hospital, and you've just come off this amazing machine
05:22that tests low oxygen levels and the effects that has on athletes.
05:28How important is physical performance when it comes to preparing for climbing a huge
05:34mountain?
05:35You need to be as fit as possible.
05:38There is lots of suffering and lots of pain.
05:40If you find joy in that pain, you will do extremely well.
05:44One thing I learned about mountaineering is you need to replicate what you will be facing
05:47in the mountain.
05:48If you are like hiking to base camp, you need to learn how to hike for long hours before
05:52going there.
05:53But in the same time, you are in a place where you are not having the proper sleep that you
05:58are having usually because of lack of oxygen.
06:00You are sleeping on a tent, not in perfect situation.
06:03You don't have the same food you have at home.
06:05And it's day after day after day, so you need to be very physically fit and you need
06:09to be mentally and emotionally prepared for that.
06:13It is the key part, the key differentiator there.
06:16Because different to other sports, in mountaineering, you expect the unexpected.
06:23Being with you, it's very obvious that you have this never give up attitude.
06:27Is it important to you to continue to promote that when you work with others?
06:31Getting my injury and losing my fingers, I see it from a positive side because it helped
06:36me to inspire lots of people.
06:37Lots of people, not only with physical disabilities, but people also having challenges in their
06:42life.
06:43How can I inspire them to say that never give up, never say never?
06:47I've done lots of public speaking, lots of group sessions, but also lots of one to one,
06:52giving advice to people and giving them inspiration on how to continue their life.
06:58You've climbed some of the biggest mountains on the planet.
07:02What's next then on the horizon?
07:04One thing very important is I want to do more of the other work that I'm doing, promoting
07:09awareness, awareness about disability.
07:12Not everyone who is disabled have a physical disability.
07:14There is lots of different disabilities that are not visible to the people and I think
07:19it's very important for inclusion, for diversity, that we understand that people with disabilities
07:25are all kind and shape and some of them and lots of them actually are hidden disabilities.
07:30I think promoting that, promoting mental health is very important.
07:34It's something that I had challenges with, with my injury.
07:37So I think this is something that I'm dedicating lots of my time in and also educating youth
07:42and youngsters, having role models for them and how to overcome challenges in life as
07:46they grow up.
07:47Noble work that I'm sure will make a difference to many millions all around the world.
07:52Farhad, thank you so much for joining us on The Dialogue.
07:55Thank you so much.