Through a friend, I met Dave Sunter about 7 months ago, and was asked if we had any driving jobs for Dave. He appeared to be a honest guy who just needed a break, as he was currently driving a van for a local company, but was not getting paid, as the company were making excuse after excuse for paying him and he was running out of money.

Dave didn’t have his own vehicle or the finances to buy one yet, but a long standing friend vouched for Dave and said is there anything we can do for him, as we was a genuine nice guy and wouldn’t let us down.

I had a 4m sprinter at the office which wasn’t being used, as it was used as a backup van in emergencies. As Dave seemed a nice guy, I offered to help him out and let his use my van, on a self-employed basis, for the next few months, until he was in a position to buy it from us or buy his own van.

My friend wasn’t wrong, Dave is a great guy! Very honest, reliable, hardworking and a nice guy to boot.

An example of his kind heart, he did a delivery a few months ago of a fence panel to an elderly couple. When he arrived at the house, Dave asked the man there where he wanted the fence panel going. The elderly chap asked Dave to just put it in the front garden. As Dave was placing it in the front garden, he saw the broken fence panel that was obviously the one that was being replaced. As the couple were elderly, Dave asked the chap there if that was the one that needed taking out and the new one sliding in? The chap confirmed that yes this was the case. Dave proceeded to take out the damaged one, replaced it with the new one and put the damaged one on the van. The elderly couple were delighted with his act of kindness and called me to tell me about it. Dave never even accepted a tip for going above and beyond!

So this leads me to the reason I am writing this article.

About 6 weeks ago, Dave complained of felling unwell and ended up in the Countess of Chester hospital with what they said was infection in his leg. He spent about a week or so in hospital receiving treatment and was discharged to complete his course of medication.

The next week, Dave came back to work, but after only a couple of days, he clearly still wasn’t right and took the rest of the week off to rest.

On the Saturday, my friend rushed Dave to Whiston Hospital, as he was in a very bad way. He was immediately admitted and placed into Intensive Care. After some tests, Dave was diagnosed with Sepsis and Pneumonia and also possibly suffered from a mild heart attack and was kept in Intensive Care, until just about a week ago, where he was moved to a ward.

When on the ward, the doctors asked to take a sample of Dave’s bone marrow, so they could do a biopsy. Reluctantly he agreed, as he is already a Blood Cancer survivor from back in 2013.

On Monday this week, the results of the biopsy were back and Dave was given the devastating news he has Stage 2 Leukaemia . On Thursday Dave started his first course of intense chemotherapy and they are now trying to find a match for a bone marrow transplant.

We are all devastated for Dave and are all behind his fight.

As Dave is self-employed, he obviously has no income whatsoever to help support his family, of which he was 4 children. With this in mind, I have decided to set up a Crowdfunding page, with the idea this might help support Dave’s kids with some income, during this terrible time.

I have put a target of £2000 (which I know doesn’t go far) but whatever we can do, I am sure this will be appreciated and one less thing for Dave to worry about, leaving him to save all his energy and fight for the road ahead.

I just wanted to show Dave, that although he is self-employed, we at Speedy Freight care.

Don’t feel under pressure to donate, I understand we all have our own individual responsibilities.