Adam Crook
adam's page
Fundraising for The Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre (DNRC)
Story
When members of the Armed Forces are injured, their rehabilitation currently takes place at Headley Court. This is a small site, with limited scope to expand, and is due to close later this year. The UK is currently building a new purpose-built rehabilitation centre (the Defence National Rehabilitation Centre or DNRC) to provide 21st century clinical rehabilitation for members of the Armed Forces who have suffered physical and mental injury serving their country (full details of the project here: https://www.thednrc.org.uk).
This project will be funded largely by charitable donation and this is the cause I am running the London Marathon for this year - My inspiration is watching the rehabilitation of former colleagues who have been seriously injured: Andy Reid (pictured above, see link here for his most recent fund-raising efforts: https://vimeo.com/194320707) and Rick Clement (click here: https://www.soldierscharity.org/events/bigoneabseil/ ).
Recent deployments in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan might have now drawn to a close, but the country owes a huge debt of gratitude to those young service personnel injured serving; many of whom will need medical support for the rest of their lives. Some statistics:
-) In Afghanistan, in addition to 453 British deaths, more than 7,300 armed forces personnel were treated in field hospital for battlefield injuries
-) In Iraq, there were 173 deaths and 5,800 were treated in field hospitals.
-) 21,756 men and women have been medically discharged from the British Armed Forces for health reasons since both wars began in 2001.
-) Numbers on psychological injuries are harder to quantify:
* According to the charity 'Combat Stress' it takes someone with PTSD, on average, 13 years from Service discharge to making first contact with Combat Stress
* 'Combat Stress' estimates that around 1 in 25 Regulars and 1 in 20 Reservists will report symptoms of PTSD following deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan;1 in 5 Veterans are likely to suffer from a common mental illness, which has been caused or aggravated by their Armed Forces experiences
* The charity 'Help for Heroes' has estimated that up to 59,992 Iraq and Afghanistan may develop a mental health problem.
Please donate if you can
Thanks - Adam