It really was a cracking effort by Ian Barnes from Stone when he joined 37 colleagues for a charity swim to raise money for JCB’s £1 million NSPCC appeal. That’s because the JCB worker completed his two-and-a-half-mile leg of the 44-mile marathon effort… and then discovered afterwards he had done it with a broken ankle.
Now thanks to Ian’s and the efforts of the other swimmers, more than £7,100 has been raised for the NSPCC. They all took the plunge for the charity by swimming the equivalent of the English Channel and back – a total of 44 miles.
However, a day before the swim at Uttoxeter Leisure Centre, Ian, who works at the JCB World Parts Centre in Uttoxeter, injured his right foot and ankle in a long distance endurance race. Despite being in considerable pain, he thought he had only sprained his ankle and decided to continue with the swim.
It was only after finishing 150 lengths of the 25-metre pool that Ian went to hospital where a scan revealed he had broken a bone in his ankle and is now in plaster for four weeks. Incredibly, he finished the distance in just one hour, 10 minutes and 17 seconds (an average of 28 seconds a length) – also making him one of the fastest participants.
Ian, aged 30, said: “It was quite a shock really. I injured my right foot and ankle while taking part in a 60km combined running and cycling race held in Leicestershire. The next morning it had swollen up but I thought it was just a sprain, so decided to carry on and take part in the swim. I didn’t want to let down my colleagues or the NSPCC.”
The money will go towards supporting a specialist NSPCC centre in Newcastle-under-Lyme dedicated to saving babies and young children across Staffordshire from serious abuse and harm.
