Know No Bounds – Challenge Accepted
Following Maxwell McKnight’s successful journey up Mt Snowdon using a Sunrise Medical X8, I caught up with Darren Macey. Darren is both the Business Development Manager at Lifestyle & Mobility and one of Maxwell’s fellow travellers up Mt Snowdon. Here’s some of what he had to say about the climb.
“Anything that’s a bit out there”
“Initially it was Josh [Josh Wintersgill, whose idea is was to climb Mt Snowdon in a powerchair] who got in touch with this idea” Darren says, then adds with an excited grin that “I just always do weird things…Anything that’s a bit out there, you know!” It’s clear that this was a bit of a passion project for Darren once he got involved with it “I was like, brilliant, let’s do this”
Ultimately the aim was of course to support the Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) charity itself. In particular, this support would be given by raising the funds for some bespoke, top-of-the-line Magic X8 powerchairs by Sunrise Medical, very suitable for the needs of users with SMA.
“A family coming together”
Darren on Snowdon
John Barnsley, Sunmed’s Area Sales Manager for the South East, took a particularly hands-on role with this project. Darren praises him for the technical assistance with the Sunrise Medical X8 which he gave throughout the process. Darren says “Nobody actually knew whether this chair would actually make it up, and, if it did, whether there would be any problems” Whilst the X8 is especially designed for off-road usage, Mt Snowdon is an altogether different proposition. Fortunately, the powerchair proved equal to the challenge. Darren says that the feel of the event as it unfolded was almost that of “a family, coming together…There were a lot of people who only met each other on that day. It was just, everyone was looking out for each other”
“The general public was amazing”
“The thing that got me” Darren emphasises “was actually the general public, going up the mountain. Because Snowdon’s a busy mountain – there’s a lot of people there that’re doing time trials, or the Three Peaks. But the general public was amazing, it was actually quite emotional. The public was just stopping in awe…clapping”