Shropshire wheelchair user Sam to take on London Marathon for charity
A PhD student who lost the use of his legs after an operation for a rare condition will take on the London Marathon sitting down to support a disability charity.
Sam Eardley, 27, has used a wheelchair for 12 years since being paralysed from the waist down in an operation to treat the effects on his spinal cord of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT).
It doesn't stop him exercising regularly though - and now he wants to wheel himself around Britain's biggest running event to raise money for Scope, which helped him change his mindset after becoming disabled.
He will use his regular wheelchair and compete in the same section as the able-bodied runners.
Sam, from near Market Drayton, studied at Oxford and is now undertaking a PhD involving hydrogen fuel cells in Birmingham.
His mother Jane, who still lives at Rosehill, said that Sam began having trouble with his legs as a teenager due to the hereditary condition they share which causes abnormal blood vessel formation.
It began to affect his spinal cord and, at the age of 14, he went in for an operation that resulted in him losing the use of his legs.
While in hospital he was introduced to someone else who played wheelchair basketball, and he went on to play for Wales under-23s.
He has since taken on half marathons in his wheelchair in Oxford and Birmingham.
Training every day
"He was just in the middle of all these people [on foot]," said his mother Jane.
"When he is going up hills they're really feeling sorry for him, asking him if he wants a push.
"Then when he gets up the hill he flies past them, laughing.
"He trains every day, he's very good about his diet. He is quite fit and when he did the half marathons he said could have carried on – whether he could have doubled it I don't know."
Sam is raising money for Scope, which campaigns to change perceptions of disability.
To donate, visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sam-eardley1
Sam wrote: "When I first came out of hospital, I thought the same about my future as most would have – how the general media portrays disability as having a half life, excluded from the world and a burden on society.
"Thanks to charities like Scope, I have been shown that my disability isn't something that defines me. It isn't something that I should be ashamed of. It's just something that makes me unique, and it's something to be proud of.
"I'm running the London Marathon to raise money for Scope as a way to thank them, and to help them continue to change the mindset of disability in a modern world."
