Hari Budha Magar, a Nepal -born veteran who lost his legs in Afghanistan , became the first double above-the-knee amputee to summit Mount Everest .

The historic feat Friday came 13 years to the day since he stepped on an improvised explosive device as a Gurkha soldier.

Magar had spent 18 days at base camp before scaling the mountain, waiting for the weather to improve and saw two bodies being carried down. More than 310 people have died climbing Everest since Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached its peak in 1953.

All of my jackets were completely freezing, he told the PA news agency per The Guardian . It was all frozen. Even our warm water, we put hot water in the Thermos, and that was also frozen and we were not able to drink. When I came down we ran out of oxygen.

While the former soldier eventually forged ahead, he could only relish in his victory for a few minutes: His oxygen mask and sunglasses were entirely frozen over. For Magar, who now lives in Canterbury, England, the mission had seemed utterly impossible in his youth.

I grew up in Nepal, up to age of 19, and I saw how the disabled people were treated in those remote villages, said Magar. Many people still think that disability is a sin of previous life and you are the burden of the earth. I believed this myself because that is what I saw.

That is how I grew up, he continued.