Ian 'Bill''s fundraiser for British Heart Foundation

Ian 'Bill' Bailey is raising money for British Heart Foundation

Team: Ian Bill Bailey Walk

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Grand Union Canal Walk · 24 July 2023

Far too many of us have felt the pain of losing someone we love. With your donations, we power groundbreaking cardiovascular research to save and improve lives, bring hope to families, and keep hearts beating across the UK.

Story

All my life I have wanted to walk the Grand Union Canal, which is a 150 mile mainline walk from the River Thames at Brentford, London to Gas Street Basin in Birmingham.

In July 2021, I decided that the time was right to begin preparing for the walk, which was planned to take place in June 2022.

All was going as planned, building up the length of walks a little bit more each time until 2nd January 2022, when I suffered an out of hospital cardiac arrest. Fortunately, I was amongst family who were able to call for help and successfully conduct CPR until the paramedics arrived, breaking several ribs in the process.

I re-arrested in A&E and was blue light transferred to a specialist heart centre, where I was in a coma for 7 days. During this course of events, a blood clot travelled from my heart to my foot, killing the blood supply to my foot and led to the amputation of my toes.

Recovery has been a long journey that I can continue to travel, with permanent damage to my heart, brain function and foot. Despite this, I was always determined to complete this walk, albeit 12 months later. Here I am, 12 months after coming off my crutches, ready to undertake the walk of my life and raising money for charitable causes in the process.

The walk is completely self funded. 100% of funds raised will be split evenly and donated to 2 charities:

RNLI - This has been my chosen charity for life due to my love of water and my admiration for those who volunteer to save lives.

BHF - I am one of the 2% of people who suffer out of hospital cardiac arrest and survive and as such I will be donating funds to this charity in recognition of their work and support towards giving me a second go at life.

Donation summary

Total
£765.00
+ £170.00 Gift Aid
Online
£765.00
Offline
£0.00

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