No hands, no feet doesn’t stop mountaineer from snowboarding, changing nappies

Jamie Andrew climbing Scotland's Ben Nevis in 2000

[video] Founex, Vaud, Switzerland - Tough things are going to happen to you in this life and you can learn from them. Just don’t give up.

That was the message handed by sports enthusiast Jamie Andrew to the 2010 graduating class at La Chataigneraie, the Founex section of the International School of Geneva. Andrew was the guest commencement speaker. He knows what he is talking about: the 41-year-old Scot lost both feet and both hands after being caught for five days by a bad winter storm while cllimbing the North Face of Les Droites, above Chamonix in the French Alps in 1999. The accident is described in his book, Life and Limb. His best friend and flatmate Jamie Fischer died before a dramatic helicopter rescue.

He bounced back after the accident and dramatic rescue, to carry on with a career in sports and public speaking. He kayaks, paraglides, snowboards, has run the London Marathon and has gone back to mountaineering.

But he told the students at La Chat that the hardest thing he’s ever done is to raise kids. He has three, a six-year-old and four-year-old twins. “Nothing is impossible” is his motto, shared with the students.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdDnbJQVvHE&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]