In October of last year in his first term at Cardiff University, 18 year old Tom Boyce, a member of our Cricket Club and a promising product of our Colts system became critically ill with pneumonia and was fighting for his life in the Critical Care Unit at the University Hospital of Wales (UHW) in Cardiff. Tom was too ill for conventional care so the consultants reached out for the advanced critical care offered by a specialist team from St Thomas' Hospital in London that retrieved him and put him on a heart and lung life support machine called ECMO.

Tom spent a month in hospital at St Thomas' and after a very long and stressful year Tom is now so very much on the road to recovery and has started to get his life back to normal again.

ECMO stands for Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation. ECMO is a bit like putting a patient on an artificial lung or heart machine and can provide life support for people with complete heart and/or lung failure. The ECMO buys time for the patient whilst the doctors diagnose and treat the underlying problem. Tom has been incredibly fortunate to receive the advanced critical care that ECMO offers. He has received amazing care and support from numerous dedicated doctors and nurses throughout his time under the care of the NHS and they have all ultimately contributed to him being given a second chance to live.

Tom's Dad, David, has planned a charity walk from University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff to St Thomas', London in September. The walk will begin on Sept 8th and finish 6 days and 171 miles later on 13th Sept. David Boyce's walk is a personal tribute and symbolic journey marking Tom's ECMO ambulance progress from Cardiff to London, the first leg of his 'road to recovery'. David's two main motivations for undertaking this challenge is to raise money for ECMO at St Thomas' and as an opportunity to say thank you to all the incredible people working for the NHS in Cardiff and London that have contributed to saving Tom's life.

For more information please see the below charity page:
https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DavidBoyce5

And also please follow David Boyce's website with blogs and twitter feed:
Website: http://www.walk4ecmo.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Walk4ECMO