A quadruple amputee who lost his limbs and half his face from Toxic Shock Syndrome has revealed his eight-year-old son, who he describes as his ‘driving force’, inspired him to climb Ethiopia’s highest mountain.
Alex Lewis had skin from his shoulder grafted around his mouth after he lost part of his face because of a vicious flesh-eating infection, and has had lips tattooed onto the skin.
Part of his recovery was thanks to his life-saving doctor Geoff Watson who has just completed a climb with the 39-year-old, scaling the top of one of Africa’s highest mountains.
Alex had previously said that he wanted to teach his eight-year-old son that disability wasn’t a death sentence, and speaking today about his inspiration for the climb he credited both his son Sam and his wife Lucy as his motivation to climb 14,872ft Ras Dashen in a solar-powered buggy.
Alex is pictured above on the solar-powered buggy which he used in Ethiopia, it was designed by students at Southampton University
Alex says his wife Lucy and son Sam (pictured together before the illness) have been his driving force
‘He is my driving force, Lucy and Sam have both been incredible all the way through this.
‘Six years ago he wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t come near me, wouldn’t hug me or kiss me.’
Speaking to Holly and Phil with his doctor Geoff at his side, Alex, who is from Stockbridge, added: ‘Now he loves the fact that Daddy comes home with all sorts of contraptions, vehicles and things to play with, prosthesis, arms, legs you name it, he loves it now’.
Little Sam had just been three-years-old when Alex went to the doctors in November 2013 for what he thought would be a routine cold check up.
Alex (above) appeared on This Morning today to talk about the challenge he did on the solar-powered bike
It led to a series infections which left him with a three per cent chance of survival.
Speaking of the first time he met Alex, Geoff said that he had been doing a ‘pretty passable impression of dying’.
‘So when I first laid eyes on him he was in bed on a ventilator on a dialysis machine. You cant predict who is going to survive these sorts of things.
‘He was on life saving drugs. Alex surprised us all, that’s sure to say. We gave him little chance of survival. I had the family come in and ask them to talk to him to try and get him to respond, but then we saw remarkable changes.’
After Alex’s condition improved the pair didn’t see each other for a while and fell out of touch before they reconnected at an educational talk.
Alex (left) and Geoff (right) completed the challenge together, further cementing their firm friendship
It was from there that they became firm friends and built their bond up.
The pair dreamed up the Ethiopia challenge and Alex asked Geoff to get on board.
‘We needed a proven medic. It was unique and was a great way to say a huge thank you to what he carried out six years ago’, Alex said.
In terms of the training Alex had to undertake to complete the challenge in October, he said there was quite a lot of preparation that had to be done.
‘I am by no means an athlete and the idea of the vehicle with the solar assisted battery power with it was to aide me on the trip – but we did all train hard.
‘We had this idea that Ethiopia would be warm, sunny, very pleasant, but it was reasonably cold and wet and quite the opposite to what we expected.’
The equipment Alex used was made by students at Southampton University who were tasked with coming up with a design.
‘We gave them free reign really because we had no idea what they might create.
‘When we viewed it for the first time we were just awe struck really at what they could create.
‘They have gone on to create something incredible’.
Alex said the idea had been to leave one of the bikes out in Ethiopia for its use in different communities, but that this wasn’t possible.
On the final moments of the summit and Alex said the last point had been difficult and at the end he was pulled over the summit by Geoff.
‘For me that was an overwhelming emotive moment, he and I would not have been on top of that mountain had we not met in such circumstances.’
Geoff added that Alex likes to tell people he didn’t cry at the top of the mountain, but he claims that he did.
Geoff added: ‘I don’t think I really clicked the significance of it until one of the guys on the team asked Alex who was that man.
‘Alex replied that I was the man who saved his life, and we all cried.’
The pair are now looking to get a version of the vehicle to Mongolia next year, with them also looking at projects in the Antarctic.