“Don’t look down,” says Dave the safety engineer beside me as we stand in a basket hanging 170ft above Xscape, near the River Clyde.
“Thanks for the advice,” I gulp.
He opens the gates and begins the countdown.
“Three, two, one,” he pauses. The wind rocks the basket ever so slightly.
“Bungee!”
I step out and plummet 170ft.
I opened my eyes and immediately noticed a Royal Navy ship docked in the River Clyde. From this height it looked like an Imperial battle cruiser straight out of Star Wars. As I fell further, it looked even more epic. No sign of Darth Vader unfortunately.
Then the rope tightens up, it recoils and I am hoisted back up in the air.
Visually it’s like a camera zooming in and out very fast. Physically, you get butterflies, the rush of adrenaline and then your stomach attempts to relocate to your cranium.
-
- Three, two, one….bungee!
-
- Falling the first foot of 170.
-
- WOOHOO!
-
- in mid-flight.
-
- Feeling quite like an acrobat at this point
-
- Just hanging. I love this image.
-
- Keith, Dean and Rich post-bungee.
As I landed, I saw Tommy and his son Dean. That brought a smile to my face, knowing this was all for them.
You can read more about the jump in the post-bungee article I wrote for the Wishaw Press.
Mr. Giggles and Super-Dad
Tommy and Dean are from Shotts. Tommy came into the Wishaw Press office last year and and I was immediately moved by his family’s story. Tommy explained was looking to raise £18,000 money to get Dean muscular therapy in the USA.
His ten-year-old son, Dean suffers from quadriplegic cerebral palsy, which means he can’t walk, or talk and requires 24-hour support from his parents. Amazingly though, Dean never stops laughing or smiling thus his nickname, Mr. Giggles. Tommy’s other teenage son suffers from Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, learning difficulties, while his wife’s mobility is complicated by a variety of health problems. Tommy is one of the most inspiring and dedicated men I have met during my career. In short, he is a super dad.
Keith, Dean and Rich post-bungee.
After our initial meeting, I spoke with my cousin and uni-cyclist-enthusiast Keith, about doing a joint fundraiser for Dean. Keith had originally talked me into booking the bungee jump as part of a new year’s resolution.
Raising £500 through friends, print and social media
Since we only had a short amount of time to raise money for the bungee jump on February 17, we set our target low at £150. We never expected to raise any more than that.
I had hoped to open a just giving page for the bungee, but they unfortunately only allow charity fundraisers to open pages and not fundraisers for individual causes such as Dean’s.
After more research I stumbled across Give Forward, a site like justgiving but for individual causes. Great! I think, but Giveforward would only function for fundraisers in the states. Not discouraged by this, I contacted the people at Give Forward explaining the situation.
The next-day I got a reply from the President & Co-Founder, Desiree Vargas saying her cousin suffered from the same condition as Dean and (as long as I verified that the project was legitimate with a scanned letter from Tommy permitting me to raise funds on his behalf) that they would make special arrangements for our fundraiser. You can still view the page here: http://www.giveforward.com/mrgiggles.
The Wishaw Press ran three articles in the weeks running up to the bungee jump: two about Dean and one detailing my hopes for the bungee jump. All three contained details of the bungee jump and the GiveForward URL. I also created a Twibbon and actively promoted it on my Twitter account.
If you’ve visited the GiveForward page, you’ll see that we only managed to raise around £40 of the £150 and you’re probably thinking where did the rest of it come from?
I was disappointed at the online campaign, but was amazed at the response we had locally. Keith and I received a plethora of cash-donations from business owners in Wishaw, and Shotts, friends, colleagues and family. Post-bungee we had raised over £500, absolutely smashing our target of £150. Social media is a great thing for fundraising, but sometimes the tried-and-tested ways work just as well.
A few weeks after the bungee I got a call from Tommy saying he was going to postpone his fundraising for Dean because another Shotts family were looking to raise money for their son who also suffered from cerebral palsy. They needed £40,000 to fund a life changing operation they had arranged in August. This was early March and the money was to be paid by July.
Tommy said he’d give all them money we raised and asked me if I was interested in covering the story…
Positive, continual human-interest content with themes of family, charity, community and a challenge with a potentially great outcome?
Naturally, I couldn’t refuse.
NEXT POST: £40k in four months? How about over £100k! – The kindness of Shotts and the transatlantic quest of Kyle Grant.
All images on this page were taken by the talented Tommy Cochrane of Photo-Shotts. Tommy is a 24-hour Super Dad and photographer from Shotts in Scotland.
