Marching up to the top of ‘the hill’ as wounded soldiers battle Mount Everest

You can tell David Wiseman is in an Army officer. It’s partly the accent which is straight from Sandhurst, it’s partly his no nonsense description of how he was shot in a fire fight with the Taliban, it’s also the way he refers to the world’s highest mountain as “the hill”.

It’s not that the 29-year-old from Tadcaster, who next week will fly out to the Himalayas along with eight other injured soldiers to attempt to scale Everest, is underestimating the challenge ahead. Straightforward pragmatism is just the Army way.

“It’s the lack of oxygen which is the real killer on the hill,” he says. “After 4,000m just putting one foot in front of the other drains so much energy. Altitude sickness effects people in so many different ways, some get headaches, others find they can’t eat and their body ends up shutting down. They say that if you took the fittest man in Britain and dropped him at Everest he would be unconscious within three minutes. Your body needs time to acclimatise.”

To that end, a few weeks ago, Captain Wiseman took delivery of an oxygen tent, which is now installed in the bedroom of his home in Catterick. His calorie intake is being boosted by protein shakes but while most days now involve a long run, he also knows that physical fitness alone won’t be enough to see him to the top.

“Once you’ve done the preparation, it’s really not rocket science it’s just hard work. I’m not the fastest person to try climb Everest, but I’m hoping it will be a case of slow and steady wins the race. It’s as much a mental struggle as it is a physical one. Maintaining levels of motivation is not easy especially when you’ve had a bad day and simply surviving takes a lot of effort. The trick is to keep it simple. Army training teaches you the mantra ‘my rifle, my kit, myself ‘and it’s the same on Everest. If you don’t look after your kit then everything else will go to rats.”

To reduce the risk of being caught in snow and ice falls, much of the climbing will be done out of the main heat of the day and the nature of the expedition means there will be many hours of hanging around. Along with thermal clothing and ration packs, Capt Wiseman will be taking a set of Trivial Pursuit cards, each of the men is bringing a couple of magazines, which range from lads’ mags to the Spectator and the Economist, and iPods will be fully charged.

When the five selected for the summit team by Walking with the Wounded, the charity which last year organised a successful trek across the North Pole, begin their ascent, Capt Wiseman will be climbing alongside Private Karl Hinett, who was injured in Iraq when his Warrior tank was petrol bombed in 2005. They call themselves Bullet and Burns.

“The charity has two aims, firstly it exists to generate finance to retrain ex-servicemen and women, but it’s also there to act as an inspiration and a bit of a kick. The guys going to Everest are basically held together with electrical tape and baling twine, but our injuries won’t stop us achieving. The message I hope this expedition gives to people is that disability is not the end of the road.”

With a father who served in the Royal Air Force, Capt Wiseman says he grew up with the old fashioned idea that to serve Queen and country was a privilege. While studying at Manchester University he joined the Officer Training Corps and, after graduating, chose to join the infantry so he could command men in the field.

After completing a tour in Iraq, in the winter of 2009 he was posted to Afghanistan attached to the 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment and found himself embedded with the Afghan National Army as part of the Operational Mentor and Liaison Team.

“It was a two-way relationship, they learnt a little bit about how we do our business and we benefited from their local knowledge, but of course there is always risks,” he says. “One day we got into a fire fight and as we were advancing towards the enemy I was shot in the chest. Because of the position I was in the bullet basically rattled back and forward and then got stuck.”

The X-ray of the bullet lodged in his chest remains on his laptop, not that he needs any reminder of the day he came close to death, he remembers every minute.

“Blood was pooling into the chest cavity, my right lung was full of holes and when my left lung collapsed, I was really struggling to breathe,” he says. “They had to perform emergency surgery right there in the field. There was no anaesthetic, but they basically cut a hole in the chest cavity, shoved in a bit of tubing and syphoned off some of the blood so my good lung could work again.”

Capt Wiseman, who has two children, two-year-old Luke and three-month-old daughter Jessica with his wife Lucy, was flown back to Britain where he spent three weeks in hospital. He was released just before Christmas, but full rehabilitation has taken much longer. The gunshot damaged the nerve running from his neck down his right arm and some of his strength has not yet returned.

Army officers don’t tend to make good patients, but when he saw an old university friend, Captain Martin Hewitt, whose right arm was paralysed when he was shot during combat in Afghanistan, completing last year’s North Pole trek, he realised what he needed was a goal to focus on.

“The doctors tell you to slow down and take things easy, but it’s not in my nature,” he says. “Seeing Martin walk to the Pole gave me massive inspiration and I want to pass that onto someone else. I want to show that you can turn what has been a pretty negative experience into something positive.”

Capt Wiseman is not entirely sure what he will do when he returns from Everest or whether he will be able to continue in the Army. But for now his only priority is to ensure he gets to the top of the hill and back down again.

“The truth is that I do feel that I should be there with my troops, but it’s just not an option for me so I have to deal with that,” he says. “Like most soldiers I have an incredibly high level of drive and ambition and I know that can be channelled into other things, but I can’t think about that now.

“I suspect when we get to the top it will be a mixture of ecstasy and relief. We’ll have been looking at this hill for weeks and you don’t see the top until the last three days and the final push. I’m not the sort of person who worries unless there’s something I can do about.

“You can’t stop an avalanche or an ice fall, so it’s best just to crack on with it. I guess my biggest fear is looking like an idiot. I’ve been talking about it for so long now, I just want to get it done.”

Accompanying the summit team will be a four-man support squad, which includes Dan Majid from Leeds, who will be acting as the expedition’s media liaison officer. When he suffered from severe altitude sickness during a training climb of Mount Manaslu earlier this year, it ruled him out of ascending higher than 6,000m and reaching the top of Everest at 8,848m. However, the 27-year-old remains a vital part of the base camp team which was put together by Russell Brice, a mountaineer who has led 19 successful summit treks of Everest. “It’s odd to think how far we have come in the last few months.

“When I first met Russell he said, ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit foolish to take a group of injured soldiers who have never climbed and ask them to get to the top of Everest?’

“My reply was that it was about as stupid as me volunteering to go to Afghanistan.”

After graduating from Leeds Metropolitan University with a degree in leisure and sports studies, Dan joined the Pudsey-based Territorial Army unit Four Para. When not teaching PE at Leeds West Academy, he devoted much of his spare time to Army training.

“I had a chance to volunteer in Iraq, but I didn’t think I was ready,” he says. “However, when the call came for Afghanistan, I couldn’t think of any reason not to go. I felt a sense of responsibility. I had taken a lot from the Army and going to Afghanistan was a chance for me to give something back.”

Dan landed in October 2010, but eight weeks later on what should have been a routine patrol to resupply checkpoints, he was caught in a blast from an improvised explosive device. The shrapnel which entered his arm shattered the humerus and severed the radial nerve.

Three operations and 18 months on, much of his strength has returned, but he admits to occasionally being panicked in crowded spaces.

“It often happens in train stations. If I notice something which seems out of place then it does sometimes become a bit overwhelming, but I’m getting there and Everest has been a really good thing to work towards.

“When you’ve been in a life or death situation it does make you look back and ask yourself, ‘Was I doing what made me happy?’.”

When we speak it is the day after six soldiers, including five from the 3rd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment, were killed in Afghanistan. The single worst enemy attack on UK troops since operations began 11 years ago, the news has inevitably given the expedition added poignancy.

“That could have been me,” says Dan. “Every day I’m reminded just how lucky I am to still be here.”

Walking with the wounded

It will take the Walking with the Wounded team six to eight days just to hike to Everest base camp, which at just over 5,300m is 1,500m from the summit.

From the highest camp on the route, climbers leave at midnight to scale the final 1,000m in around 10 to 12 hours.

In total the summit attempt will involve seven weeks on the mountain and 21 days of climbing.

At the top, the temperature can be -70C, but the biggest problem will be altitude. Oxygen levels reduce by two-thirds on Everest and it can cause blood to thicken to the consistency of custard.

To follow the team’s progress go to www.walkingwiththewounded.org.uk