Father of premature baby running for charity
THE father of an extremely premature baby is part of a fundraising team which is running the half marathon tomorrow to support the charity that helped his family through a very difficult time.
Gareth Morgan and several of his Collas Crill colleagues are running the Butterfield half marathon to raise funds for the Priaulx Premature Baby Foundation.
The half marathon happens to be on during Neonatal Intensive Care Awareness Month, which makes Mr Morgan’s challenge even more apt.
His daughter, Zara, was born extremely early at 24 weeks and three days, at a very tiny 590g (1.3lb) last October.
She had a tough start to life being born so early, having chronic lung disease and a small bleed on the brain. She also had anaemia of prematurity, which required 11 blood transfusions, and had numerous life-threatening infections.
There were several touch-and-go moments and she needed resuscitating on several occasions. Mr Morgan said it was an extremely worrying time with lots of ups and downs.
The Priaulx Premature Baby Foundation’s apartment next to Southampton Hospital, Aggie’s Burrow, became the Morgan family’s home for 100 days while Zara was receiving treatment at the hospital.
‘When we initially arrived in Southampton during the week leading up to delivery whilst my wife and baby were in hospital, I was living between hotels in the city and guest houses a little bit closer to the hospital,’ Mr Morgan explained.
‘Once our daughter was born, I rang the PPBF and within a couple of hours someone in Southampton was delivering keys to me for Aggie’s Burrow. It was really that simple and quick.
‘The apartment is only 200 steps away from the neonatal ward and that made a huge difference to our life at the time, being so close if there was an emergency.’
The annual costs to the PPBF are around £30,000 for these properties owned by the charity.
Collas Crill chose the PPBF as its charity of choice this year.
Keen runner and Collas Crill employee Kate Walford said: ‘Unfortunately, due to the recent pandemic, our fundraising efforts have been severely hampered so far.
‘We usually have several employees who enter the Guernsey half marathon and thankfully this year it has been rescheduled to take place on Sunday, so we came up with the idea to put in a Collas Crill team and raise vital funds for the PPBF at the same time.’
Mr Morgan’s challenge on Sunday will be a big one as he has never run long distances before and discovered during training that he had ‘unreliable’ knees. However, he is determined to finish no matter what.
‘Zara was strong and the medical staff were amazing,’ Mr Morgan said.
‘We came home with her on oxygen just before lockdown here in Guernsey.
‘She’s now off the oxygen and is a smiley little girl who has just started to crawl.
‘For the next Guernsey family that unfortunately ends up in a similar position, I could not bear the thought that they would not have access to a place to call home so close to their baby on the Southampton neonatal ward.
‘I will continue to make efforts, where I can, to support the PPBF.’
To donate visit: www.donorbox.org/collas-guernsey-half.
