A Worthing man who had an accident, which left him in a coma for eight days and unable to walk, is preparing to run 100km in the London2Brighton challenge.
Bhood La rouge, 36, had swelling on two-thirds of his brain following the accident, which happened in New Zealand where he was living at the time.
Before it happened, he'd been running half marathons and had attempted the London2 Brighton twice before, with no success due to injuries and varicose veins.
Following the injury, it took eight months to recover, during which he had to learn to to talk and walk properly again, as well as getting his personality back, which he said was due to memory loss and was the "hardest thing" he'd had to do.
Following four or five months of rehabilitation, he was allowed to run again and he's now preparing to take on the 100km challenge on May 28th.
“Not everyone’s challenges are the same but we can all help each other. One of the main reasons for doing this is just to inspire others. Sometimes you have to do the more challenging things in life. It helps you grow as a person.
“If I can have the accident I’ve had and do this, and come out the other side, it might inspire people who have never done a challenge before. You can just chip away at it, you don’t have to go to an extreme. I want to inspire people to take small steps to go for gold.”
“I climbed over a wall, slipped on some mud and hit my head on concrete. I spent eight days in a coma and I was in hospital for four or five weeks.
“In a strange way it was calming, everything had been wiped from my memory, you just feel like you are floating.
“I was putting random words into sentences without noticing and they had to teach me to go up and down stairs but I could walk after resting up.
“Before, I was doing half marathons. When they put me on an exercise bike, I was burned out after a couple of minutes. But after four or five months, they let me run again.
“I’ll never be 100 per cent. I have to babysit myself a bit more. Sometimes I struggle in conversation because my brain can’t compute what is happening as quickly as it normally should.
“You figure it out, you try different ways of eating and sleeping, and exercise helps. The first two years after the accident, I was discovering what works for me.”
“I am running for Mind because there are people that need our support. It was a massive challenge for me to be sociable with people, understand my surroundings, recognise places and remember faces of friends. It has given me an epic wake up call to those who are around us that suffer with mental health.
“I went through so many mental struggles, and still do, so much of my journey I had to do on my own. But because of the charity Mind there are thousands of people that don’t have to be on their own in their journey.”
To contribute to his fundraising, visit his Just Giving page: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bhood-la-rouge1
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