These days Warren MacDonald travels the world and inspires people with his message of perspective, meeting challenges and overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

But on that mountain climbing day in April of 1997 — the day when a quick trip to take a leak ended with him trapped beneath a many-ton boulder with no way out — he wasn’t sure it leave the mountain alive.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” MacDonald said this week from his home in British Columbia.

MacDonald, who had both legs amputated above the knee because the incident and uses a wheelchair and prosthetics to get around, will be in town this week for a Mankato Clinic Men’s Health Forum talk.

His talk, set for Tuesday at the Alltel Center, aims to be healthy dose of inspiration at a time when economy-driven doom seems just around the corner.

“Some people are blown away at how far things can appear to have gone wrong but they can still be OK,” MacDonald said.

MacDonald and another man were climbing the highest peak on a mountain on a island near Australia when, after a full day of climbing, the two decided to set up camp.

Before going to bed, MacDonald said, he needed to relieve himself. So he headed off away from the camp site, and away from the creek running nearby.

As he looked for a proper place, a piece of the cliff broke away, and MacDonald and that piece of cliff fell to the creek below. He was trapped beneath a giant boulder and couldn’t move.

“And that’s when things got interesting,” he said.

His partner left to get help, but it would be 45 hours before the boulder was raised off his legs (a process that took a grueling two hours.) A paramedic stabilized him, but he also gave him some devastating news: His legs more than likely would need to be amputated.

MacDonald sort of shrugged that off. He wanted to let a doctor take a look. And when he arrived at the hospital, it didn’t take a doctor long to tell MacDonald the same news, and add this exclamation point: It needed to be done now.

“That news slammed me broadside,” he said.

But he agreed. Not agreeing was to risk certain infection, the severity of which could kill him.

Within the next 10 days he had five surgeries, all on his legs.