Taunton Dad Takes On 178 Mile Run in Memory of His Son

Last November, Nick and Kerry’s baby Tommy passed away after contracting meningitis. He was only 178 days old.

But Tommy’s legacy shines on thanks to his heroic dad, Nick.

This week, Nick and three friends have set out on a formidable challenge in aid of The Grand Appeal: running one mile for every day of Tommy’s life over just three days. That’s equivalent to around two and a half marathons every day!

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The challenge began bright and early yesterday morning at Reading Station. At 5 am, Nick was joined by three of his closest friends – Kurt, Matt and Aaron – to begin the 178-mile journey back to their hometown of Taunton in Somerset.

The team are running for three consecutive days, with their journey taking them through Newbury, Andover, Devizes, Trowbridge, Bath, Bristol and Portishead on their way home to Taunton.

This afternoon, the runners reached their most meaningful checkpoint, passing by Bristol Children’s Hospital. At the entrance, they were greeted by a cheer squad from The Grand Appeal and the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), where Tommy spent the final days of his life.

The team will cross the finish line at Taunton Rugby Club tomorrow afternoon, with a huge crowd waiting to celebrate their amazing achievement.

Nick and his friends are aiming to raise £75,000 for The Grand Appeal… and they’re already most of the way there!

All the funds raised in Tommy’s name will support families on PICU, which cares for critically ill babies and children. Nick and Kerry want to help these families through the scariest and hardest days of their lives.

Their hard work will fund everything from free family accommodation so parents can stay close to their child in hospital, parent facilities within hospital wards, state-of-the-art equipment, world-leading research, and child-friendly programmes of art, crafts and play.  

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Tommy’s Story

Nick and Kerry have poured their hearts into raising funds for The Grand Appeal. Their fundraising was inspired by their own experiences at Bristol Children’s Hospital, where the PICU team did everything in their power to care for Tommy.

Tommy’s mum, Kerry, told us the story of her little boy’s precious final days and why it’s so vital to ensure that PICU families have all the support they need.

“Tommy was the most gorgeous, loved and cherished little boy. He brought so much joy to everyone lucky enough to meet him. He truly was our everything, and everything we do now will be done with him in mind, just like it would have been had he not been cruelly taken from us far too soon.

It started on Wednesday 5 November. Tommy had a viral infection, and he went to sleep next to me so I could keep an eye on him. An hour later, I woke up to Tommy having a seizure. We immediately called an ambulance. Within 15 minutes, we were at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, where a team of medical professionals were awaiting Tommy’s arrival.

Tommy’s seizure still had not stopped. The team did everything possible to stop the seizure and find the cause of it. Unfortunately, nothing was working. After about an hour, it was decided that Tommy needed to be put to sleep to allow his little body to rest. He was intubated, which meant that a tube was breathing for him, and he was in a medically induced coma.

Tommy had a CT scan, but they still weren’t able to identify what had caused the seizure. It was decided he needed more specialist care. Tommy was transported by a specialist ambulance to the Paediatric Intensive Care Ward (PICU) at Bristol Children’s Hospital.

Tommy was given a bed, one-on-one care with lovely nurses and was under constant observation. The staff at Bristol Children’s Hospital immediately started to investigate the cause of his seizure. That afternoon, the neurology team told us that they’d seen something on his CT scan, which indicated every parent’s worst nightmare, meningitis.

A lumbar puncture was performed to see what kind of bacteria had caused Tommy’s meningitis. At this point, the only thing we could do was to sit and wait. We would see what happened when he woke up and pray that the antibiotics that had been given to him at Musgrove Hospital would have kicked in quickly enough that the meningitis didn’t hurt his brain too much.

Tommy remained stable until the early hours of Friday morning when his heart rate dropped, and the team had to perform another CT scan to see if anything had changed. Devastatingly, this CT scan showed the absolute worst result. We were informed that in just 24 hours, the meningitis had essentially destroyed our baby boy’s whole brain and that he would never wake up. In the early hours of Saturday morning, our baby boy passed away painlessly and peacefully, cuddled in between his mummy and daddy, the two people who loved him the most in the world.

What happened to our baby boy was a tragedy. He was seen by all the right people at all the right times. Throughout his viral infection, he’d seen A&E doctors and out of hours doctors. He’d been to the GP only 24 hours before his seizure, and all the signs showed that he was on the mend. We were responsible and loving parents. We’d done everything and taken him everywhere. Everything that could have been done by medical professionals had been done. But Tommy’s meningitis was too rapid.

Our story is horrific; it’s unfair and unjust, but, unfortunately, we are not alone. Babies and children go into PICU every single day. Anyone who has ever been on a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit will tell you that these places are your absolute worst nightmare as a parent. But they will also tell you that they are full of the greatest, kindest and most caring people on earth. The incredible doctors, nurses and all the support staff on that ward are real life heroes; they don’t have capes and they don’t get anywhere near the recognition they deserve. They turn up and do their jobs with care, compassion and dignity every single day, 365 days a year, to help, save and look after some of the most vulnerable little ones in the country.

Parents with babies on PICU are warriors. They are fighting right alongside their little ones for their lives. They are staying strong when everything around them is crumbling. They are reassuring their babies that everything is going to be okay, when they feel anything but okay, and they are holding out for that tiny sliver of positivity in the day. They are constantly in fight or flight mode, ready to react to any sign of danger at any given moment with very little respite.

Those families are the reason we want to raise as much money as possible for PICU. We cannot stop the fact that PICU is desperately needed and sadly always will be, but what we can do is help parents and children whilst they are there.”