“It's the combination of everything. It's combination of faith in the invisible, faith in myself as well. But, I guess, God, maybe also part of the answer. I prefer to speak about my worst accident because it was in 1982. I fell from 20 meters - 20 meters free fall, hands first. Head first, actually, but what touched the bottom of the cliff was my hands. So both hands, they completely exploded, tearing apart my skin, my flesh. I pretty much lost 45% of my blood. Both elbows also exploded because my forearms worked as a kind of shock breaker. At the bottom of the cliff, it was a slab of limestone. So, it can't get any harder than that. It's rock. And, fortunately, I bounced back and continued my fall. But it was a steep slope. So I got another 20, 30 meters. And I guess that all of that absorbed a lot of energy. It's a bit like if you compare somebody with a being in a car accident. If you're bumping onto a tree, usually you are dead because you are speeding and suddenly something is really stopping you. Nothing is bouncing back, so this is why it kills you. And the fact that my body did manage to bounce back on the limestone and then roll again on a steep slope most probably saved me. I was in a coma, but my coma was just one week. And then somehow I woke up. 

Deep down I have no idea why I am still alive because normally you are not supposed to stay alive after such a fall, but obviously, I did. And doctors, they said that I was never going to be able to climb back, and actually I made them lie because I came back. It took me two years to be even better than I was before my accident. And although I was 66 percent disabled, I did manage to come back and become even much, much better than I had ever been before. I climbed in 1991 the hardest free solo route in the world. So that was something completely unthinkable because with such a broken body that also doesn't really make sense.”

Alain Robert is a renowned rock climber and urban climber. Known as "the French Spider-Man” or "the Human Spider," Robert is famous for his free solo climbing, scaling skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of chalk and a pair of climbing shoes. Some of his most notable ascents include the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sydney Opera House, as well as other of the world's tallest skyscrapers. He is also a motivational speaker and the author of With Bare Hands: The True Story of Alain Robert, the Real-life Spiderman.

www.alainrobert.com

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www.blacksmithbooks.com/books/with-bare-hands-the-true-story-of-alain-robert-the-real-life-spiderman/

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