Birmingham postman supports heart transplant wife with bike challenge
Damon Tierney is taking on the 24 mile challenge to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.
A postman from Birmingham is swapping his usual daily route for a 24-mile rocky bike track to raise money for the British Heart Foundation after his wife had a heart transplant.
Damon Tierney, 39, from Woodgate Valley, will be doing the Peak District Mountain Bike challenge ride later this year to raise funds for vital research which could help people like his wife Sarah who was born with a congenital heart defect.
Sarah, 36, said the heart defect she was born with was known as transposition of the great arteries. This meant that her two arteries were the wrong way round and at just eight months old, she had correction surgery.
She then didn’t need any more surgery until she was in her twenties when two pregnancies caused her heart to fail again.
Sadly, Damon and Sarah’s oldest son Joseph, died shortly after birth, but their other son Jake is now a healthy 15-year-old.
Up to 200 people have a heart transplant each year in the UK. They can be offered to people whose heart is failing and heart medication isn’t working anymore.
“I think I was in hospital more as a transplant patient that I was as a heart patient with the congenital disease,” said Sarah.
“Jake was only seven at the time - it was very tough and the recovery was difficult.
“I will now be on heart medication for life, but what I have been able to do since has been incredible – just the normal mundane things, taking my son to school, going out on bike rides, played football with him, going on holidays. It's been amazing.”
Damon said he had been inspired by his wife, who was normally the one doing the fundraising.
“Sarah’s done a lot for the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham where she had her transplant and she’s done other things in the past for other charities so this was a good way for me to do a little something as well,” he said.
“I enjoy riding my bike so thought I could do something to tie in with that.”
He said training was going well – helped by the ten miles he walked every day in his job as a postman. “That keeps me pretty fit generally,” he said.
“But I’m getting out on my bike at least once a week, sometimes more as I know it’s going to be a tough terrain.”
BHF Events Manager Amy Grice said she was humbled to hear Damon and Sarah’s story.
“They sound like an incredible couple and must be so proud of each other,” she said. “We know that heart disease is a huge killer – someone dies from a heart or circulatory disease every four hours in Birmingham alone.
“The British Heart Foundation is proud of the heart transplant research we have funded over the years as well as the research we fund into congenital heart disease.
“So we’re really grateful for the money that Damon is raising that will help go towards vital work that means we can ensure that we stop heartbreak forever.”
You can support Damon’s bike ride on his Just Giving page here.
There still places available on BHF’s team for the Peak District Mountain Bike Challenge – to find out more and sign up please visit the BHF’s events pages.