The Tom Whittaker Story: One Step at a Time - The Disabled Summit of Mt. Everest (video). Stephen Janson and M. D. Morgan, Producers. Released 2001, Distributed by Janson Video. Running time: 50 minutes.

Reviewed by Delano Greenidge-Copprue

This video chronicles Tom Whittaker's journey from a highway accident in rural Idaho to the summit of Mt. Everest, the "roof of the world." This story has the feel of a grainy reality TV show and is remarkable because Whittaker, hiker and aspiring teacher, summits Everest with a prosthetic right foot.

Whittaker's story offers a sound introduction to viewers curious about Mt. Everest, nutrition, sports medicine and the human body. The mechanics of Whittaker's climb are of particular interest, and the video treats them in good detail. The discussion of Whittaker's prosthetic foot is well presented, showing why his foot is a marvel of motion and why Whittaker himself is a top athlete. Before his accident, Tom Whittaker was a champion rugby player and rock climber; sport formed a great part of his life and, with his disability, Whittaker re-invented his sense of balance by developing his hamstrings and gluteus maximus to compensate for his loss of right foot and patella.

In addition, the video does a fine job of considering why mountaineers are perhaps the finest athletes in the world. To summit Everest requires two months of intense work, battling dehydration and a body that generally wants to quit. The summit of Everest is 29,028 feet—cruising altitude for commercial jets. At these attitudes, the body works three times as hard to take a breath that we will unthinkingly take at sea level, or while reading this review. Add to all this the fact that, as an athlete with a prosthetic foot, Whittaker exerts about 30% more energy than an athlete with two feet, and one can easily make the case that Whittaker is a superior athlete.

In 1989, Whittaker made a run at the summit, reaching 24,000 feet before his efforts were thwarted by a storm that killed six people. The energy exerted on that climb was, in theory, enough to summit the mountain. In 1995, Whittaker came within 1500 feet of the summit before turning back.

The above is background for what forms the second half of the story, Whittaker's 1998 expedition. The expedition actually begins in 1995 with a challenge from Whittaker's friend to return a rock to the summit of Everest. In three years time, Whittaker raised the $250,000 necessary to outfit an Everest expedition and, on March 15, began his epic odyssey, flying from Phoenix, Arizona to Nepal. Arriving in Nepal, viewers are given a sense of Tibet, from prayer wheels to base camps, to places so remote that they can only be reached by foot. In this two month stint, Whittaker, along with constant pain, battles setbacks of weather (a snowstorm grounds the climb for two weeks) and a viral infection. All seems lost towards the end when, on the last day of his climbing permit, Whittaker summits Everest in a sustained effort of will and determination.

Whittaker's automobile accident cost him a teaching job, but the lessons gained from this video show us that Whittaker never left the profession of teaching. His closing meditation on suffering is very powerful, ringing with a truth of the highest magnitude. Having reached the mountaintop, the teacher has become a philosopher in his own right. Whittaker's story is an inspiring one, one that will endure because it is enabling.