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Andrea Lanfri: the limit is just in your head

“I think the impossible doesn’t exist.”
Andrea Lanfri

He says he is a country boy from Lucca, a town where he was born and still lives. Andrea Lanfri has always loved the mountains, ever since he was a child: he started with trekking and continued with via ferrata, climbing and mountaineering. Before his illness he climbed challenging grades and trained three times a week. Then comes January 21, 2015, the X date. In the morning he wakes up, he is very cold and feels feverish. At that time he lives alone with his dog. He calls the family doctor, who examines him and gives him tachipirin. After lunch the dog insists on playing, and with extreme effort Andrea takes him outside, and he fills him with parties in return: every contact is like a stab wound, Andrea feels a sharp pain, which puts him at attention. So he takes off his clothes and sees that he is covered with black spots on his skin, and he realizes that something is wrong. He can’t walk anymore and calls his mother and the doctor’s office. Meanwhile, he measures his fever: the thermometer reads 43 degrees. That is the last thing he remembers. Andrea wakes up two months later from his coma in the hospital. His first thought is “what have I done?”

It is a moment of confusion; he cannot move his limbs, which are still there but are bandaged. He barely opens his eyes, his face is scabbed and he cannot speak. He feels isolated, wants information but cannot communicate. He does not distinguish reality from dreams. A doctor explains to him what happened, and he responds with nods and helping himself to a tablet. Slowly his face improves, he opens his eyes and begins to speak again, one of his first achievements. When he is medicated he sees his feet, which are in the worst shape. His hands are also in necrosis: he cannot move the right one at all (of this one he still only moves his thumb). He realizes that his limbs will never be the same again: they are like those of a mummy, all dried up. The doctors urge him by telling him to move them, but while there is a small improvement in the hands, and indeed he manages to save three fingers, for the feet there is nothing to be done.

The situation remains stable for about four months, and doctors do everything to avoid cutting. Then suddenly in the spring the septicemia starts again, Andrea hallucinates and he is put in a medically induced coma. After seven days he wakes up and sees that his limbs have been cut off: the doctors had been forced to do so, or he would not have survived. Fulminant meningitis with meningococcal sepsis took away both his legs, and seven fingers on his hands. The first thing he remembers is a phrase from the chief physician, who walked into the room, saw him eating independently, and said, “Andrea, you have resurrected!” A week earlier, in fact, doctors had given him up for dead. Since his limbs were cut off, Andrea, in fact, has been like reborn, and from there his chart soared toward recovery.

Since that moment, many new challenges begin for him; he has to relearn how to do everything from writing to eating. Right away, however, he is sure of one thing: he will go back to doing everything he did before the illness. He will go back to climb, to go to the mountains. He gets a piece of rope brought to him in the hospital to relearn how to do the burin, the half-boat and other knots, with three fingers. When he gets out of the hospital, his mind is light years ahead of his physique, which cannot keep up. Andrea has lost more than 25 kg, has been more than six months immobile in a bed, five of them artificially fed. He is beginning to take his first steps with prostheses and relearning to walk, putting all his willpower into it. He has a desire to learn, his mind is not stubborn, he wants to start again, to go back to frolicking with his dog and friends in the mountains. Every day he tries prostheses, walks with them, and they hurt so much. It is not easy, but he insists on rehabilitation and takes many walks in the trails behind his house. Then slowly he begins to give himself goals, such as the summit of some mountain in the Apuan Alps, although he often can’t even get halfway there because of extreme fatigue.

Once he overdoes it with the sticks, breaks all his intercostal muscles and has to stay still for a week. He also tries climbing but cannot get up. What was bread and butter before the disease is now very difficult. But Andrea’s greatest desire is to run. Inside him is ignited a great desire to run, a challenge against “fate” and the bacteria that wanted to stop him. Only the right prostheses cost so much, and Andrea, who before the disease was an electrician, had to close the company. So he launches a crowdfunding: the goal is the 15,000 euros needed to buy the prosthetics to run. On his birthday he closes the fundraiser by reaching double the amount, and makes three pairs of prosthetics.

From that moment he trained in earnest on the blades, and began his career as a Paralympic athlete for the Italian national track and field team, which would lead him to win records, European medals and a world silver medal in London, as well as achieve many other important milestones, and to become the first Italian athlete in history to run with double lower limb amputation under 12 seconds in the 100-meter dash. Meanwhile, he also began to go to the mountains again, and at one point he was invited to climb Mount Rosa.

Andrea accepts with reservation, saying he does not know where he will make it. Instead he makes it as far as Capanna Margherita and then thinks he can go again. He then meets a girl, also a mountain enthusiast, and they start climbing together. The mountain has come overbearingly back into his life, as a personal challenge to improve himself and go higher and higher. Thus was born the project of climbing Everest, a dream realized also thanks to the contribution of La Sportiva, the company from Ziano di Fiemme (Trentino, Dolomites) that believed in Andrea, supporting him with clothing and shoes. Andrea’s motto is: “The limit is only in your head”; he doesn’t think the impossible exists, at most he thinks he is not ready for something, that he has to prepare himself better than a normal person.

Andrea what does Everest represent for you and how did this dream come about?
It is an idea born in 2019, as a challenge to myself and as a spite against the disease, which has always tried to hinder me in everything. In the mountains there are no excuses, you either pass or you don’t. The beating it gives you is important.

On Everest what were the hardest moments?
Everything went very well, although the fatigue was a lot! I always tried to stay alert and focused on the issues I might have, in particular I took care of the stumps to avoid bruises, blisters, inflammation, and I paid attention to the prostheses, which were designed and made specifically for this expedition.

Did you experience particular difficulties with your prostheses and at the abutments due to the altitude?
The temperature changes from day to night were important, and so the volume of the stump varied, and I had to be careful to make a correct assessment, because if the prosthesis hurt, by walking there every day I would not be able to continue. Crossing the icefall downhill after the summit was a challenging moment. After the Hillary Step I started to walk badly, and I thought my foot was broken. I had brought a spare one, but at eight thousand meters it would not have been ideal to fiddle with the allen wrench to change it. So I went down hoping it would hold and got to the South Col. I took it apart and saw that it wasn’t broken, but snow had gotten in and frozen, blocking the blades. That was the only drawback, and in fact I suffered a little bit on that downhill stretch because I was loading the left a lot and using the right badly.

Before reaching the summit of Everest you had already taken home from this adventure of yours another record, running on blades the highest mile in the world in just 9 minutes and 48 seconds…
We were in a small village at high altitude with sandy ground, so it was particularly strenuous. On the first attempt I stopped because it was really hard. Then I tried again, I knew I had to stay under 10 minutes, I succeeded and it was good! I also put on a bit of a show, for Nepalis to see a person running on some pretty flashy blades is not an everyday occurrence-I was the subject of videos and photos, it was a good time, we had fun.

Tell us how the ascent and descent went.
For this expedition we started with a trek of several days with some friends and my father, climbing some mountains up to over five thousand meters, and we arrived at Base Camp. Then the next day the rest of the group left again. Afterwards, again together with Trentino mountain guide Luca Montanari, we left our gear and began our acclimatization by climbing a six-thousand-meter peak, my second Nepalese peak after a seven-thousand-meter peak I had already climbed. Then we returned to Base Camp and continued with the other acclimatization phase, which involved the first Icefall crossing, which we accomplished in eight hours. We arrived at C1 and the next day we came up to C2, crossing the Valley of Silence, and stayed put for one day. The next day we got as far as C3, and then returned to C2, doing another day’s rest. Afterwards we returned to Base Camp, skipping C1. Here we recovered our energy for a week, and afterwards we lowered our altitude, returning to civilization for a few days. Then, when we were planning to go back up, bad weather came that made us a little worried and postponed our departure for the summit. Then finally there was a window of good weather from May 12 to 15, and so on the morning of the ninth we left Base Camp, pulling straight up to C2 because bad weather was forecast on the 10th. It took us twelve hours of hiking, quite a stretch. Here we recharged a little bit, and then we continued to C3, where we slept, and then from C3 we went up to C4 at 7,900m, where we arrived about two in the afternoon. At 7:30 p.m. we left and reached the summit on Friday, May 13 at 5:40 Nepal time. Quite a gallop! Then the descent began and we arrived at C4 at three o’clock. At C3 we would not have wanted to stop but we were too tired so we slept there, even though it was very windy. The next day we got to C2 and then to Base Camp…. It was done!

What emotions did you feel at the summit?
We faced the ascent all at night, and when we got to the Hillary Step it was the most exciting moment: on the right I had a unique sunrise, while on the left I could see the shadow casting the shape of the perfect pyramid of Everest. At that moment I saw the summit and started to push because I couldn’t wait to get there, although then this acceleration I paid for the last fifty meters: I was very winded and kept stopping, I had gone a little too far. It didn’t seem real to me to be at the top: I’ve had this dream for years, postponed also because of the pandemic. I saw the end of a journey that had started so long before, with training in the mountains and the desire to not give up and challenge myself. It was the closing of a circle, the summit was a simple geographical point that encapsulated a long journey. I was very happy, and in a way I felt that the summit had been a bit of a gift to me: I was the one who had gotten up there and put my own spin on it, but it was an accomplishment made possible thanks to all the people who helped me and believed in me: from the prosthetic technician, to the people who donated to the fundraiser I did for this expedition as well. It was kind of like paying back those who believed in me when I wasn’t doing great things yet.

How would you describe Everest to someone who will never have the opportunity to travel to the Himalayas?
A mountain with many climbs! It is fascinating yet truly endless. You feel like you have arrived, and yet it never ends. Past the icefall you see the summit and it seems really close, instead it is immense.

In the past you have stood with No Cav positions in defense of the Apuan Alps, in your opinion is it possible to climb an eight-thousander in a sustainable way today?
I think a lot of progress has been made, I’ve seen a lot of education and cleanliness, I feel like there is more attention than there was years ago. Today the oxygen tanks are all marked and agencies are asked to bring them back and also large deposits to make sure this is done. I did not see a lot of trash around, only on the South Hill was there a few tent graveyards. There are also several projects that have the goal of cleaning up the mountain. It seems to me it is going in the right direction. On the Apuan Alps there are some mountains full of trash: there taking it away would not be a problem!

Did you encounter queues of people?
We didn’t encounter any traffic and we were never stopped waiting, on the summit day we were the third to reach the top, we were lucky.

Do you think mountains are for everyone or for a few?
Some mountains are not for everyone, not only in the Himalayas but in general.

To whom do you dedicate this rise?
I thought about it, and I think to my dog Kyra, my lucky charm: if the day I went into the coma she had not insisted on getting me out of the house, I would have stayed in bed, not realized how sick I was, and not called the doctor. I was alone in the house and would probably never have made it through the night. Kyra was a Siberian Husky and snow was always her element: when she smelled it she would go crazy with joy!

Do you think you inspire people with your projects and your story?
I hope so; knowing that I give positive energy gives me a lot of charge. A good part of my satisfaction comes from knowing that I am passing on to other people the same good vibes and strength that has allowed me to be the person I am today, and I’m not just talking about sporting or mountaineering feats. Knowing that I am helping, through my story, people who have encountered a ‘hiccup’ similar to mine and just needed to see that anything is possible, manages to give me even more motivation!

Who do you think is the best mountaineer ever?
The one who comes home! Not the one who makes it to the summit.

Will you continue with mountaineering or do you want to go further? What attracts you?
Of course! I have so many climbs on my list and I don’t think I will get bored. I am now struggling with the Seven Summit project, which involves reaching the highest mountains on each continent on Earth. The next attack will be Kilimanjaro at the end of August, I will go there with my girlfriend, a friend and his girlfriend. Then Elbrus, Aconcagua, and other peaks will follow. I don’t hide the fact that then there might be a few more eight-thousanders….

Who will Andrea Lanfri be in a next hypothetical life?
A free animal, I crave freedom! A free spirit, maybe a wolf, comfortable in the snow and cold.