Jack Tate is taking on an epic adventure!

“Early one Sunday morning I received a phone call telling me that my dad (age 49) suffered a burst aneurysm in the early hours and that he was in intensive care. I hadn’t even heard of an aneurysm before, so I turned to Google. After one search everything suddenly got worse, there was only a 50% survival rate for his condition.

After 4 weeks in ICU my dad was finally moved to another ward. However, he was unable to speak to us or even acknowledge us sitting at his bedside for 8 hours a day. 

As my dad started to recover, he wasn’t aware of what he had been through. This made things very difficult as he would try to escape from hospital wards and wasn’t always willing to let nurses help him with day to day tasks and so was moved to a more specialist facility.

This is where he has lived since and he is worked with daily to help him in his recovery. The hardest part of my dad's recovery process has been the distance between us. Living in North Yorkshire has meant a 500 mile round trip to visit and at times I would arrive and only get to spend 20 minutes or so with him. 2 years on from the injury my Dad is in good spirit and can manage daily tasks when prompted with no problems.

I want to fundraise for SameYou as the aftercare process following a brain injury is so important and I feel it needs all the help it can get. I chose to walk to Cornwall as it’s somewhere I have fond memories of as a child. I’ll be carrying with me a backpack weighing in at around 18kg including a tent, sleeping bag, clothing and food and drink supplies and am hoping to complete the 479 mile walk in around 30 days.

I hope to raise £5000 in my challenge and you can follow my journey on Instagram @jacks_big_advenure or donate here.