Charity challenge sees Nairn man battle through pain barrier to row length of world’s F1 tracks to help friend with spinal cord injury
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A GRUELLING challenge to row 71 miles 'non-stop' has been successfully completed by a Nairn man after he battled through the pain barrier over 13 draining hours.
Darren Munro (42) began his Herculean charity effort on an rowing machine at Pure Gym in Inverness at 4.45am on Friday in a bid to raise vital funds to help a paralysed friend return home after a horror accident on holiday.
And just after 6pm he finally hit his 71-mile target – the equivalent distance of a lap of each of the world’s Formula 1 tracks on the 2022 calendar.
The symbolic total was chosen by Darren as a nod to his and his friend's shared love of F1.
And he is hoping that the money he raises will help make a difference to the life of Tom Spina (47), who is still waiting to get home from hospital after an accident in a pool in Cyprus last April.
Mr Spina and Mr Munro, who became friends through their children after meeting on holiday, had been at the pool when Mr Spina suffered an accident that damaged the spinal cord in his neck and left him him with extremely limited upper body movement.
Related: Nairn man set to row length of world’s F1 tracks to help friend with spinal cord injury
Mr Munro said: “I jumped in the pool, came up, wiped the water off my face and saw Tom face down and blood in the water.”
Nobody is sure of exactly what happened but Mr Munro was able to pull Mr Spina from the water, and he was rushed into emergency surgery before spending several weeks in intensive care and on a ventilator.
He was later able to transfer to a hospital in the UK, and then later was moved to the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandevile – but several months later he is still at the facility, although preparations are under way to get him home.
And Mr Munro's charity rowing challenge, which has already raised hundreds of pounds, is hoping to help towards the significant costs of adapting Mr Spina's home so he and his family can once again share a house.
Speaking to the Inverness Courier, Mr Munro said he had already raised around £600 but the total was still rising thanks to donations from people who saw live updates from his challenge.
He's delighted with the total so far, especially after he had to battle through some unexpected obstacles on the day.
"My knee started hurting after the third [race] track. It's [Murphy's] law. I've had a knee injury in the past from my military times but it's been fine all the way through training and then, the third track in, I started getting sharp shooting pains in my left knee.
"I managed to put up with it until lunchtime and then I had to go and get some gel and pop some painkillers to try to numb the pain a bit.
"Then, probably around the third from last track I started hitting the wall where I was struggling, I got a bit emotional actually from how hard it was. And then the second to last track was probably the most difficult one just because I was running out of gas."
But he said the support of those who were following his exploits live online helped to make a difference, adding: "The final [track lap], was 5.5km long. I did 4.5km and then I went live for the last kilometre. I had the camera kind of in front of my face for the last kilometre just to get a bit of motivation and comments from that."
He continued: "When I would stop between tracks I would have a quick look on Facebook and reading the comments just sort of spurs you on to keep going."
After successfully completing the challenge, he said he was feeling "a bit sore", adding: "My knees are probably the worst, the lower back and just generally tired."
"It's been worth it, I just need to take a couple of days and then get back into the gym, but maybe not do as much rowing," he joked, adding that during his training he had to stop doing weights and focus solely on the rowing. He was looking forward to being able to return to his normal routine.
More details of Mr Spina's fundraising campaign are available at the Get Tom Home Facebook page which includes links for online donations.
