Page 33 - Eclipse - RVC Alumni Magazine - Autumn 2020

STUDENT NEWS
Student climbs equivalent of
Mount Everest for the NHS Hayley Quigg, BVetMed, year 4
After returning home to my
small town of Alnwick in Northumberland, I felt quite removed from the chaos of COVID-19. It seemed a distant problem. A few weeks later I was given a wakeup call when one of my close friends, an NHS key worker, was hospitalised due to the virus. Thankfully she made it out of hospital, but it has not been without lasting effects.
This gave me a greater appreciation of
the risks that our key workers are taking
in order to ensure the continuation
of important services. This has been especially true of our NHS stars who we have needed now more than ever. Once I’d realised this, I became motivated to find a way to show thanks to the commitment and hard work shown by so many.
I’m a bit of a fitness fanatic and since lockdown I have tried to find ways to keep myself motivated to train. I started doing weekly challenges to help make training interesting and try to encourage others
to challenge themselves. Upon feeling inspired to show my support for our NHS,
I went in search of a challenge that would really push me to my limits. I was struggling to find something that excited me until my partner jokingly suggested trying to climb the height of Everest on the stairs.
“That sounds hard”, I thought, “deal!”
I had a quick look online and saw there had been a few attempts, mostly done over multiple days and none in less than 24 hours. That only made me even more excited to try. After measuring the stairs, I calculated that I’d need to ascend
the staircase 2,949 times to climb the equivalent of Everest’s 8,848 metres.
I knew times were tight, so I didn’t want to ask for donations and opted instead for a show of support. I pledged that I would donate £1 for every Facebook ‘like’ of the challenge post.
I was totally overwhelmed by the support shown. It was hard going and
I was grateful for each message of encouragement I received. I was also blown away by the generosity of others. A number of people contacted me wanting to make their own donations and, together with my £105 contribution, we collectively raised £1,050!
The challenge took 19 hours and 17 minutes and I must have spent at
least 10 of those hours cursing myself for being in this situation. However, I learnt a lot of things that day: horses aren’t the only ones that can get EIPH; stair carpets aren’t as robust as one would expect; ice baths are awful – no matter what people tell you. But most importantly, take advantage of feeling inspired and with support from others you can achieve things that you thought you couldn’t.
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