Bolton NHS worker wins athletic gold medals on 28th anniversary of heart transplant
On July 27th, exactly 28 years after undergoing the lifesaving surgery, Rob Hodgkiss won gold in discus and 200m track at the European Transplant Sports Championships
A Bolton health worker celebrated the anniversary of his life-saving heart transplant by winning two gold medals. On July 27, exactly 28 years after undergoing the lifesaving surgery, Rob Hodgkiss won gold in discus and 200m track at the European Transplant Sports Championships.
The first place finishes were in addition to four silver medals the 58-year-old achieved earlier in the week in the swimming pool and volleyball. The British team also topped the medal table and won trophies for the best heart and lung transplant team and best overall team at the 2024 edition of the
games held in Lisbon, Portugal.
Rob underwent a heart transplant aged 30 at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle, while he was working as a dentist in the city. He suffered a rapid illness due to cardiomyopathy and it was only eight weeks from being admitted to hospital with shortness of breath to being discharged following a lifesaving heart transplant.
Unfortunately, hand tremors that are a side effect of his lifelong immunosuppressant medication prevented the return to a career in dentistry, so Rob returned to university to study physiotherapy. Qualifying in 2003 from University of Salford, Rob has enjoyed a 21-year career working for Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and now works as an practice education facilitator, supporting students on placement at the trust.
Rob said: “It’s always amazing to take part in transplant sports events, knowing that everyone there is only alive due to the selfless gift of a donated organ.
“It was especially poignant to win the gold medals on the anniversary of my transplant and to look back at my life over the last 28 years, knowing none of it would have happened without my transplant.”
A former keen athlete, Rob has used his transplant as an opportunity to return to competitive sport and has competed at British, European and world transplant sports events, winning more than 100 medals and trophies over the past 28 years in athletics, swimming and volleyball events.
The championships were Rob’s first competition since the COVID-19 pandemic, with several events having been cancelled due to the high risk of infection for transplant recipients. Rob said: “I’m really passionate about promoting organ donation, having seen one of the three people on the cardiac ward in Newcastle with me on the transplant waiting list die without the chance of a transplant.
“There are currently more than 7,500 people in the UK waiting for a lifesaving transplant and too many still die without getting the chance of a transplant.”
While recent law changes mean there is an opt out system for organ donation, people still need to share their wishes with their families, as the family can
still decline the option of an organ donation if they don’t know the person’s wishes.
Rob added: “People often say how unlucky I was to need a transplant aged only 30, but I feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance of the gift of life from a transplant and the 28 years with my family that wouldn’t have been possible without the selfless gift of donation.” Rob lives with his wife Julie and has a daughter Bethany, who had her first birthday just two weeks after his transplant, and son Adam who was born two years after the transplant.
The European Transplant Sports Championships saw more than 500 athletes from 25 countries across Europe take part in a joint event between the European Heart and Lung Transplant Federation and the European Transplant and Dialysis Sports Federation.