In 2011 my daughter, Rachel, had a terrible accident which left her paralysed from the chest down and with a minor brain injury.  She had passed all the flying and aptitude tests to become a military pilot, but that future was taken away from her in a heartbeat.  Against all the odds, she awoke from her coma and, weeks later, started speaking again.  Mercifully, she has retained her wicked sense of humour!

In 2015, she did this: 

https://www.forces.net/services/navy/paraplegic-takes-fearsome-royal-marine-challenge

A year before that, she swam 20 lengths for charity.  Now she regularly does 40+ lengths which, with her left arm at about 80% and her right arm at around 40% effectiveness, takes her 80 minutes.  She can't keep herself warm enough to do many more than that in a standard pool.

Swimming is the only activity she can do completely independently, so she loves it and wants to do more.  It was her idea to take on this challenge which, to crack the 1416 lengths, will mean increasing her swimming rota to 3 times a week for just under 12 weeks.

Logistically that is a big ask for her support team, because getting Rachel in and out of the pool safely is a fairly major operation, so please spare a thought for them too!

I will be helping Rachel when and where I can and doing my own Channel Swim which I aim to complete by the end of September. Whilst I'd be grateful for any donations, it's more about Rachel's effort and I want her to get to the top of the Aspire Challenge Leaderboard, so please sponsor her directly here:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rachel-hall-2019-channel-swim-challenge