Back in March my girlfriend Hannah was doing some casual core exercises on a pull-up bar when it ripped out of the door frame. She broke her back at T12 level and was instantly paralysed from the waist down.
No insurance, plus the fact that she can't teach yoga or climbing anymore means she's in a bit of a bad place financially (and geographically - the only disabled access property we could find to get her out of hospital is in bloody Wakefield). The NHS did a fine job initially, but now she's out it seems they just want to give her some drugs and a voucher for a basic wheelchair and leave her to it. Physiotherapy (the NHS provide none) and half-decent wheelchairs don't come cheap. A lightweight wheelchair suitable for pushing more than a couple of hundred metres from your door starts at £2000. For an off-roader that'll get her off the paths and into the hills again, you're looking at upwards of £4k
Soooo... some of Hannah's friends have set up a charitable trust for her to try and raise some much needed cash. Hannah's Equipment and Therapy Fund:
http://www.heatfund.org.uk/
The first event coming up is the Ben to Blanc Challenge: A sponsored run/cycle/climb from the top of Ben Nevis to the top of Mont Blanc over 15 days - Andy and Jack were planning to do it anyway for some perverse kind of fun, but now it's the perfect excuse to raise some sponsorship money! They've also relaxed their luddite suspicions and started a blog:
http://ben2blancchallenge.wordpress.com/ Check it out, it's slightly amusing.
Please take some time to read
http://www.heatfund.org.uk/p/hannahs-story.html and donate if you can, even if it's just pence it's all appreciated.
But before you do that, can you all go and make sure your bars and fingerboards are solidly attached, you really don't want this to happen to you.