A Salfordian is trying to raise £2,500 after running for 24 hours on a treadmill to raise funds for brain injuries charity, Headway.
Dusty Zeisberger, originally from South Africa, decided to take up the treadmill challenge after his father who is in his 70s had a fall.
This fall resulted in a traumatic brain injury. Although he is retired, Dusty’s father is a musician, and fell whilst wheeling a speaker on a trolley down the hill he lives on in Germany.
Dusty said: “He rolled down the hill and he hit his head on the roof of a building that was underneath. We then got a call saying that he was in the hospital.
“He was in the hospital in a coma for about three days. Then he woke up. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move. He could kind of just grunt. Obviously that was very stressful for us. We didn’t really know what to do. Then we found out he had a brain bleed.
“He had kind of similar symptoms to a stroke and he was mostly paralysed. Then after a few days he could sort of make noises and he could move his left side a little bit.
“He’s right handed, so that made it very difficult. He stayed in the hospital for about two months. A couple of weeks ago he had a mini stroke but he’s fine now.”
The injury Dusty’s father endured led him to research more about people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries.
Mr Zeisberger said: “Headway UK has a lot of stats on people that get traumatic brain injuries and quite often it’s difficult for them to get support.
“So I decided I wanted to do some form of ultra-marathon this year. It’ll be the hardest mentally, and that links to people that have had a traumatic brain event.
“I thought let’s do something mentally difficult so 24 hours let’s see how we go. Headway UK help people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries.
“After people have had traumatic brain injuries, they require carers as they can’t do certain things for themselves anymore. Some people don’t have the help so Headway provide that support.
“There are call centres which Headway run and that’s why I chose the target of £2,500 because it takes £2,500 to run the call centres for a week. That’s such a small attribute of the things they do and that’s such a large amount.“
Mr Zeisberger is very proud of himself after completing the treadmill challenge on Friday. It became especially tough for him after one of his knees gave in. He said: “The challenge went really well. The experience itself was incredible. As a whole, I loved the experience. It was so eye-opening.
“Overall I did just over 140km in 24 hours. I must say I’m very happy with that.”
The donation link can be found here
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