Weber’s clients are working behind their limits
Published on 19.12.2011 - South Pole and Back - Ski & Kite
Although these tourists are living horrid days, one after the other, the are pressing on hard because they want to be at the SP before Christmas. One of them is badly injured though.
The one injurend is Chris de Lapuente (businessman working for LVMH as CEO Sephora Worldwide). On 16 December he fell awkwardy on the ice and he has really bashed his arm and his knee. Three days before he wrote : "... Mon 12th, was a disaster. I hit that bloody awful mental wall again. It really is a mind game. I had struggled all morning and was really straggling behind at the back of the Team. I felt the most tired I had ever felt in my whole life, as if all the energy had been sucked out of me. I knew that this was going to be tough, but days like these are truly horrid. I knew that I had to pull myself out of it or it would beat me, so I dug deep, got behind Richard and ended the last march on a high. Beaten the damn mind worm and covered 32 kms! ..."
And on 18 December :" ... A few days ago I fell awkwardly on the ice and really bashed my arm and my knee. Then made it all a whole lot worse by trying to fall down a crevasse! Fortunately, Richard grabbed me...but by my bad arm. I can ski with one arm, but not one leg. I hobbled along and we managed 33 kms but the result is that my knee ballooned up and on Fri (16th Dec) we had to stop at lunch time and call it a day. As you can imagine, I'm gutted. It all seemed to get a whole lot worse that afternoon, even though I was icing it like mad (and there's lots of ice around for that!). We decided to phone a friend of Richard's, a doctor over in Canada, for an assessment. He thinks that I might have a small break on my wrist....which will really, really piss me me off if that 's true as it will mean that I won't be able to kite ski back from the Pole. Anyhow, we ripped my Sudoku book (fiendish, I hasten to add) to bits and used the cover of the book to support my wrist. It is now totally supported and immobilised. I am hoping that it will just be a bad sprain and will be fine in a few days. If not, then maybe I'll be able to get it x-rayed at the Amundsen-Scott research centre at the Pole. As for my knee, well I'm on pretty heavy pain killers and anti inflammatories....and my fingers are crossed..."
Thanks to the satellite communications, Richard Weber could call several doctors (4 in fact) from Yellowknife, NWT, to have an assessment : they told him that his client Chris de Lapuente had probably no strutural damage in his knee. So they decided to move forwards.
On December 18, they crossed the degree 87 and are now 2/3rds on the way to the Pole. They think they could do the rest of the trip in about ten days or so.
