Steady 18 Miler

In order to try and raise a few quid; on the 24th April (Following Covid guidelines) we are taking part in the Simonside Challenge, an 18 mile walk over the Simonside hills in Northumberland. The group walking used to play football for the Turks Head Sunday league team, in which Peter Coady was part of the title wining team! 

Peter Coady a 39-year old father-of-two from Darlington, crashed his vehicle along the B6270 in Swaledale with his nephew Joe also present in the car. 

His car was forced off the road and crashed into a wall before rolling down an embankment in December 2017.

Luckily, an onlooker phoned emergency services and both the Great North Air Ambulance Service(GNAAS) and the Yorkshire Air Ambulance (YAA) were called to the scene.

Joe managed to escape the wreck and only had a cut on his leg and whiplash from the incident, however his uncle was not as lucky. 

Peter sustained an agonising brain injury known as a diffuse axonal injury, which now makes it difficult for him to find the right words to produce a sentence.

He also suffered a stable fracture to the top and bottom of his spine and a fractured elbow.

The GNAAS put Pete into a medically-induced coma and airlifted him to James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough.

On Pete’s  condition, Director of operations at GNAAS, Andy Mawson said: "Peter had suffered a devastating head injury in such a remote location."

"Everything was against him. Because the injury itself will have caused issue with the way he was able to breathe we genuinely thought his outcome would have been poor."

"Once the Yorkshire Air Ambulance arrived on scene and recognised the need for a critical care team we were deployed immediately and were able to deliver an emergency anaesthetic to put him into an induced coma and take over this breathing. This gave us the chance to optimise his physiology to increase any chance of a good outcome."

He remained in a coma for eight weeks before regaining conscious and was in hospital for a total of 11 months. He was finally able to go home on the 1 November 2018 but continues to have physical and language therapy to help his recovery.

Peter said: "They’re fantastic, the work they do is brilliant and they really helped me on that day."


Peter has asked that the money we raise is donated to the Air Ambulance.