Stroke For Stroke.
Monday, June 28th, 2010 Posted by stuart
My name is Mark Scanlon. I’m a Taswegian born, Western Australian based ocean swimmer who will be leaving Perth on August 13th 2010, where I will be attempting to swim the english channel, from Dover (England) to Calais (France). After a mate of mine succesfully did the swim in 2007 and raised over $350,000 for childrens cancer, I thought I better ‘man up’ and do the same…
I’m aiming to raise $100,000 for the National Stroke Foundation (NSF), not only because it’s a cool play on words, stroke4stroke, but because a good mate of mine Rob Goyan was struck down with a stroke at the start of 2009. Luckily Rob has fully recovered but at 35, it goes to show that it can happen to anyone. It got me thinking it might be an idea to use my english channel swim to raise money for them. I looked into strokes some more to find out that, behind heart disease, strokes was the 2nd biggest cause of death in Australia in 2008.
Late in 2009 i was on a training run with Rob when woman ran out of her front door screaming for help. Inside we found her husband had collapsed on the floor unconcious in a pool of vomit after suffering a severe stroke. Rob and I peformed first aid until the ambulance arrived. Malcom is alive today but in a bad way and will live with a permanent disability for the rest of his life. This experience brought home to me how little is known about strokes and their effects, and solidified my goal to raise money for the NSF.
Unfortunately the NSF doesnt have the profile or resources to recieve the type of fundraising that breast cancer, heart disease childrens cancer etc does so i thought id get onboard and do my bit.
I’ve spent a massive amount of blood, sweat, tears and money to get myself to a position to make an attempt to swim the channel – on the verge of fulfilling this, my childhood dream. I hope my journey may inspire you to achieve your wildest dreams, too!So hopefully you can donate a few dollars for a good cause and in doing so help motivate me to make it accross the channel to Calais!
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