Pedal power will help to save lives

29/03/2008

TOMORROW Martha Anderson, aged two and a half, will stand alongside her twin Matilda to cheer on a group of young cyclists raising money on her behalf.

The fact that Martha is well enough to be at the starting point at Derwent Reservoir on the Durham/Northumberland border is remarkable in itself.

For at one time she was so ill in hospital that she was only kept alive thanks to a machine called The Berlin Heart.

Tomorrow money raised from a sponsored pedal along the reservoir dam wall by youngsters from nearby Edmundbyers – Martha’s home village – will go to a charity set up by her grandfather, Gordon Gipson to raise £50,000 to buy another Berlin Heart for Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital. Martha was just nine months old when she started to have breathing difficulties and was taken into hospital.

Specialists at the Freeman found she had a rare condition which causes the heart to enlarge, known as Cardiomyopathy, and was in an advanced stage of heart failure.

Within weeks Martha was categorised as the most urgent case for a heart in the whole of the UK.

She was saved with the help of a specialist machine – just one of six in the country.

The Berlin heart is the equivalent of an artificial heart, pumping blood round the body, and it kept the youngster alive until a donor heart was found.

Martha’s mother Gillian, 36, said: “These heart machines are literally life-savers. The Berlin Heart kept Martha alive until the transplant.

“But there are more ill children than machines and we want to buy the Freeman another one to help more children.

“Martha is making good progress. She and Matilda sometimes fight like cat and dog, but she more than holds her own.”

To help the PICU fund, visit www.picuthepenguin.com or contact Mr Gipson on (0191) 284-2603, or info@picuthepenguin.co.uk

The children’s ride will take place while some of Britain’s top cyclists are competing in the ‘Northumbrian Water Tour of the Reservoir Road Race’ which starts at 10.30am tomorrow from race headquarters in Edmundbyers, County Durham.

Youngsters who can turn up to take part in the junior event will pay £1 and local company SCA will add to the donations.

Registration for the Velvet Junior Bike Race will be at the Edmundbyers Youth Hostel between 9.30am and 10am.

Tony Richards, manager of SCA Prudhoe Mill, said: “By hosting the Velvet Junior Bike Race we are giving families the opportunity to have some fun together and raise money for a very worthy cause.”

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