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A man who collapsed near the 25-mile mark in the 2021 London Marathon will return in 2023 to raise money for St John Ambulance, whose swift actions he credits with preventing "more lasting damage". Avid runner David Blackmore, 36, from King's Lynn in Norfolk, collapsed from heat stroke in 2021 during his first attempt at the London marathon and was unable to finish, saying 'my dream has turned into such a nightmare. near the end". However, he is ready to return when the race, which he said he "grew up watching" and "always wanted to do," returns on April 23, adding that the 2021 incident did not "just have a positive impact."
"I felt fine until about mile 22-23 and then I couldn't remember much else," television reporter Blackmore told the PA news agency.
"The only thing I remember...was feeling like my head was made of lead and very heavy, and I was justifying to myself that I could actually run the next three or four miles with my hands supporting my head.
“From what the people at St. John Ambulance told me, (he had) all the symptoms of heat stroke/heat exhaustion, which is dizziness and confusion.
“They told me: 'Hey, if you want to walk there… you can' because I only had a little more than a kilometer to walk. But in all honesty, when I got my phone back, I had no idea how to use it: when your brain would normally do things naturally, you suddenly had to try to think of what you really needed to do.
"I was like 'No, my career is over and I'll have to go back.'"
In the period since his collapse, Mr Blackmore has completed marathons in Brighton, Vienna and Atlanta, as well as accepting a virtual challenge to run Route 66 in the US and raise funds for East Anglian Air Ambulance in August 2022. in the 435 mile Round of the Anglia Challenge.
He is now fundraising for St John Ambulance, saying it made "perfect sense" to do so "to say thank you", and towards the end of March he surpassed his £2,000 target.
"The more I can talk about this and the more I can talk about the work that they do, the more people will be able to realize how important it is to have charities like St John and the Volunteers," he said.
"If they had left me where I was and not treated me, it would have led to hospitalization and you just don't know how your body is going to react when it's so hot and it has lost the ability to cool down."
"All they told me was that they had to make some kind of canvas stretcher, because I couldn't walk. They had to do something and get a little creative to get me back to the store.
"Sometimes it seems a bit of a stretch to say they saved my life, but if they hadn't acted the way they did, as quickly as they did, more lasting damage could certainly have been done."
Blackmore said he would drink more to avoid another meltdown this time when his main goal is to fulfill a childhood dream.
"First of all, I really want to finish it," he said.
"When I watched it as a kid, I always saw those people running through the mall at the end, and that atmosphere, and that's something I always wanted to have."
For more information on Mr. Blackmore's fundraising efforts, visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/davidblackmore86.
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