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dave_matkin Inner circle 4522 Posts |
Hi All
I would be really grateful if you could help me out with this, there are several ways you could help. It feels really cheeky in some respects but hey its magicians helping magicians . I was encouraged to do this by Ian McColl who is probably the most influential locksmith in the world of Modern Escapology. In my mind he is one of the true geniuses of this century (and last maybe too?) in the magic world. (that is my opinion but I know many other escapists who would agree.) I am sorry but I will need to give you a little background. And I will try not to be too long! However, I realised after a while that I do not really do short. So I did a longer version at the end a really short [for me] version below. The really short version: I was born with knackered feet (Bilateral Talipes Equinovarus [AKA clubfoot affecting both lower legs]) Discharged from hospital twice as a child but had to go back in due to relapses in my early and late teens As I have gotten older, the condition of my feet and ankles has deteriorated and it is getting worse. I have had to use a wheelchair for just over a year and will likely have to keep using one most of the time Our third child, Adam, passed away [a lot of sites use the phrase fell asleep which is nicer I think] 40 minutes after he was born due to his kidneys not developing properly. RIP Adam 8/2/2010 A year and a little bit later our fourth child, Jessica, had to have open-heart surgery at 3 months to fix a hole in her heart! We have been supported by four charities over the past 15 years I did a fundraiser in 2006 for the Steps charity (see www.steps-charity.org.uk and www.justgiving.com/daves-triathlon) a very mad fundraiser, but a lot of fun. I want to do something for charity again something madder [or should that be more mad?] than before www.gofundme.com/MyMadTriathlon and want to do something every couple of years for different charities. Something that will push myself to the limit and get tougher and tougher. I want to do an escape followed by a semi-dangerous challenge then something with an endurance aspect. But I will need certain equipment to do it (I have two options a cheaper one that is not ideal and an ideal one that is more expensive). This is all going to help me too as it will get me in shape! The escape will involve a loop of chain passed round my neck through a long pipe and around a monument. It will be secured with a lock and sealed with wax so will be un reachable and un-pickable I am now very restricted in terms of mobility and have to use a wheelchair on a daily basis I am really struggling and want to have an active life with my kids for my kids but equipment for people with disabilities is pricey and beyond our reach. So my kids and I will benefit too! As of a few weeks ago I am on notice of being at risk of redundancy as of the end of August You can help in any of the ways below (or none too of course!) How can you help? Well there are two parts to this. The equipment stage and the fundraiser for the charity I need to raise either £4820 ($7407 USD for a mountain trike www.mountaintrike.com ) or the next best option would be a device called a free-wheel that attaches to my rigid frame wheelchair www.gofreewheel.com/pc1/FreeWheel it is a lot cheaper at £395 ($605 USD) but will be a little risky due to dare I say health and safety issues. Mainly due to the descent and the cross-country bike track as there are no brakes on the free-wheel so it will be much harder work on my hands. Once past the equipment part we move on to the fundraiser part to raise funds for the charity (I have not yet chosen the charity and in fact anyone who helps out with either stage will get a vote to help decide for which charity gets the money raised). In future years, there will just be the fundraising part for the charities. If I could get 500 people to donate £10 ($15 USD) I could move ahead and potentially get the event done at the end of this summer (700 people would bring it down to £6.50 each and $9.88 USD). The five things that you can do to help are: (no pressure to do any, one, two or all of them!!!! [HINT ]) 1. Share my Go Fund Me page with everyone you know personally, especially media types and celebs! The address is www.gofundme.com/MyMadTriathlon please share on Facebook, Twitter and anywhere else come to that! 2. Tweet / share with any and all celebrities that you can think of who may be linked in any way to disability and or magic and escape. Try and get them to willingly support somehow, even if it is just sharing online with others. 3. Let me know if you can help with the image / look of my page, what can I do to improve it? 4. keep checking in to see how it is going, give moral support and keep signposting other people to the Go Fund Me page www.gofundme.com/MyMadTriathlon And finally; 5. Donate at the Go Fund Me page www.gofundme.com/MyMadTriathlon And (later in the year, or next year depending) 6. Sponsor the My Mad Triathlon event for the chosen charity Thank you for taking time to read this I really do appreciate it. If you have any ideas or thoughts please feel free to let me know. If you know of any funding available in the UK (or world) that may help towards the initial funding part rather than the sponsorship part then please let me know. Kindest regards David Matkin And now the longer version. I have cut it down in to sections to explain what my reasoning for this entire madness. 1. I was born with Bilateral Talipes Equinovarus (known as clubfeet), had many operations as a kid, and was discharged from hospital at the age of 11. But my feet were over corrected and I had a relapse, on my left foot, at 14 and was discharged again a year later. At 20, I had another relapse and had major surgery on both feet. I was told that I would always have problems with my feet but they hoped to get 10 to 15 years between surgeries. My condition would always deteriorate and they would patch me up as and when they need to. At 29 my left ankle collapsed spectacularly (the more observant will note that is only 9 years) and I was forced to leave my job of teaching secondary school science. Since then my mobility has been gradually reducing and my right ankle (the better of the two) started to deteriorate about 16 months ago and cause major problems. I had to start using a wheel chair and have done so daily for a little over a year now. Most people who have clubfoot are sorted as a kid and that is great, however, a very small portion of us have severe difficulties into adulthood lucky us! To give you an idea of how badly this is affecting me, last Wednesday I went to a lecture at Derby Magic Circle and did not use my wheelchair. We parked close so I figured I would try the night with just my crutch. I walked 15 meters in to the building, bought a drink, sat and listened to Peter Eggink lecture. At the break, I went and got food and at the end of the night walked out to the car. I was in a lot of pain, could not sleep that night, and really struggled for the following two days despite using my wheelchair and not standing at all. So you see it is really affecting me a lot. As a younger man, I was very fit and active. I was a lifeguard, swimming teacher, sailed, did martial arts, climbing canoeing and loved them all. I worked as a lifeguard until 10pm at night on the poolside and would battle through the pain and then drive home, when I got home, I would have to sit in the car and build up the inner strength to walk on feet that were so painful I did not really want to use them. But I am just not able to do that anymore. And with three kids, I have to take care of myself to take care of them. There are many things I cannot do at the moment, these include: Cycle with the kids, or at all and this is not helping with exercise and keeping weight down. going for walks with the kids [I know I cannot go for walks but I mean going with the kids when they do the walking] I find this so very hard emotionally (we live near a forestry centres but it is a nightmare going in my manual wheel chair due to the small front wheels and rough ground) Taking the kids to the playground is a flipping nightmare. Grass is hard work in a regular wheelchair. Bark chipping is even worse! My wheelchair will not cope at all with it. I cannot perform magic, clowning or escapes standing for more than a few minutes (gutting yes!) Sky dive (I would love to do another but my wife will kill me and my specialist will not be too happy either!) Suspended straightjacket escape (my specialist would kill me as would my wife!) Cut the grass in one go, it takes a long time and many little goes at it. 2. Family, our third child Adam did not develop normal kidneys and as a consequence, his lungs did not develop properly. We were told he would live for only a few breaths at the most. Well he fought for nearly 40 minutes with help from amazing Paramedics and staff at Queens Hospital in Burton-on-Trent. A year later our fourth child Jessica had stopped growing whilst in the womb so was induced early, however, she did not grow as expected. After being checked over, they found a hole in her heart. A bit of fattening up in hospital and then she underwent open-heart surgery at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, at the tender age of 3 months old. 3. Over the past 15 years, our family has been supported by several charities for different things above. They are: a. Steps www.steps-charity.org.uk b. The snowdrop suit at Burton Hospital www.burtonhospitals.nhs.uk/news/couple-r......unit.htm c. Heart unit at Birmingham Children’s Hospital www.bch.nhs.uk/content/heart-unit d. The Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham www.rmhc.org.uk/our-houses/birmingham a much larger charity but well worth supporting, they helped so much when Jessica was in hospital at Birmingham having her heart surgery. 4. In 2006 I did a fundraiser for Steps, I called it my Extreme Triathlon www.justgiving.com/daves-triathlon . I did a tandem Skydive, followed by an escape from a cage (handcuffed to the ceiling and chained in and locked on the outside) and finished the triathlon off with some blindfolded fire juggling. I referred to it as “my maddest challenge yet” and it was at the time! However, since then I have developed a wheelie bin escape (chained and padlocked on the outside) and even more recently an airtight body bag escape, sealed with a combination padlock set by the spectators. Therefore, the next fundraiser has to be a little, nah a lot more mad. 5. It is time to do another fundraiser for one of the charities above (depending on voting). My plan is another triathlon, this time a REALLY MAD one. It will not include a skydive, there is no way my feet could take that and I do not think my specialist would be impressed. So it is going to be a really challenging escape. Based on the nooses that animal control use. A loop of chain goes round my neck then the ends are passed through a tube that is about 60 cm or so longer than my arms. The chain then passes round a tree, or in this case, round the monument at the top of a slag heap and the ends padlocked tightly together. The lock will either be sealed with wax and signed duct tape (or possibly welded, if possible). So I will need to somehow melt thorough the chain as I will not be able to reach the lock let alone open it or bypass it (I wonder if I can use Matt Johnson’s Melt principal here – no I cannot! but it will be fun working it all out). Assuming I get out of the chain it is a steep and treacherous decent down the side of the slagheap. The only rule for the decent will be that I shall not be allowed to use any of the manmade paths. This is going to be risky if I cannot get the Mountain Trike sorted, in fact I may go as far as saying I would only do the non-path route with a Mountain Trike. After the decent is the second part of the challenge the distance trek. It is about 13 miles from Pooley Wildlife Park to Hicks Lodge. That is a long distance on a wheel chair of any kind and will take a lot of preparation and training. The final challenge will be to complete the cross-country cycle tracks at hicks lodge. This could end up being a 2-day event, which will make the whole event that bit harder. I want to finish off the challenge with a show presented by local magicians from Burton and Derby. But at this stage we are just getting started and have not got that far yet. Thank you for reading the whole post (both of you ) I am hoping to get footage of the slagheap this week and post it over the weekend, failing that next week some time. Please go to my Go Fund Me page here for more details: www.gofundme.com/MyMadTriathlon And please be one of my 500! Thank you! I should add any surplus will go straight in to the fundraising for the charity. |
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