CheringTEN – Best4Ben

On Sunday 21^st May there WAS a 10km run from Avening & Cherington cricket club in Cherington to raise funds for our friend Ben Wernham (see below and Best4Ben.com or facebook.com/best4ben).The event was amazing.

The amount on this gogetfunding page is not all that we have raised: after raising £1000 on Sunday the total is up to £3550 and still going. This page will stay open for a few more weeks if you know people who want to sponsor you / support Ben.

There are many wonderful photographs of the day that you can buy (for which most of the cost will go to Best4Ben) Go to http://snapped4u.com/galleries/7756 to have a look. It's in dollars but don't let that put you off. Each picture is $2.60: that is about £1.50, and £1.20 of it will go to B4B.

Thank you!

Joe Weinberger and Andy Green

For those who don’t know Ben, this is his story…

Whilst on holiday in April 2016 with his partner Ella and young family Olivia (8) and Iris (3), Ben sustained life-changing injuries while playing in the swimming pool with the children. He broke his neck in 3 places and as a result, suffered a massive amount of damage to his spinal cord. Ben is now coming to terms with living life as a tetraplegic (the complete or partial loss of use of all four limbs and torso).

Soon after the accident, Ben was transferred between 3 different hospitals in Cyprus due to the severity of his injury, and had surgery to stabilise the breaks. During the flight back to the UK, they had to make an emergency landing in Germany after Ben went into septic shock caused by pneumonia. He spent 10 days in hospital in Munich recovering where they also fitted a tracheotomy to help Ben breathe via a ventilator.

Once deemed stable enough to travel again, Ben was flown back to the UK via RAF Brize Norton and spent a further 2 and a half months in Gloucestershire Royal Hospital ICU. From there he went to Salisbury Spinal Unit, and after numerous chest infections and months on a ventilator, he was able to breathe for himself, which is a major step for somebody with his level of injury. In time he was also well enough to start spending time in a specialised wheelchair and has since been trying to build up the time he spends in it each day.

In early March 2017 Ben moved to a care home in Gloucester where he has the opportunity to learn to live a bit more independently back in the community until he can come home. For him to be able to live at home again, they need to create wheelchair access into their house and build an extension so that he has the room to move freely within his home, and there is also space to accommodate the full-time carer he will need. Over £100,000 has already been raised through the generosity of countless people. Most of this is being used to pay for groundworks, which have recently begun on their house.

Amazingly, the BBC show DIY SOS has very recently announced that they are going to be helping with the next stage of finishing the house, in June this year. This is incredible news that will accelerate the prospect of Ben coming home soon but the desperate need for fundraising won’t end there. Ben is going to need specialist care and equipment to help him day-to-day, to keep strong and to aid his rehabilitation: all of this will be very expensive.

The accident has been life changing for all the family – adapting to this new life will be challenging. Ben is a young and strong man who has a real determination to get home to Ella and the girls. The road to getting the family together again is a long one and, though they have come so far already, there are many challenges still ahead.

How you can help…

Donate to CheringTEN for Ben, or support Best4Ben in any other way you can. Any money you can raise will go towards helping Ben live at home with his family once again.