forward THE KLEIN MATTERHORN, Switz...

forward THE KLEIN MATTERHORN, Switzerland -- A Japanese quadriplegic upon Monday partly realized his dream of ascending united of Switzerland's highest mountains, thanks to a friend who carried him up with the help of a high-tech robot suit.

Seiji Uchida, who has been paralyzed from the neck down since a traffic accident more than brace decades ago, failed to reach the summit of the 13741-foot Breithorn mountain.

Riding piggyback forward a friend, the 43-year-old said, however, that simply getting to within 500 yards of the mountaintop was a triumph.

"Today, at the top, I had the same feeling as when I saw the pictures of the Breithorn for the first time -- I was overwhelmed," Uchida said.

Uchida and his friend, Takeshi Matsumoto, took a cable car up the Klein Matterhorn, before a three-hour hike toward the Breithorn. They said they overspreaded about two miles before having to transfer back with an hour of the steepest reach remaining because they otherwise would have been too late for the cable car back down.

"Now my dream is to take upon other challenges, other mountains," Uchida said.

Matsumoto carried Uchida with the help of a kind of wearable robot known as HAL, or "Hybrid Assistive Limb," which gave him extra strength

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