OH! Magazine - Australian Version November 2016 | Page 4

( OH WOW! )

KERRYN HARVEY
ARMED WITH GENEROSITY

Australian elite paratriathlete Kerryn Harvey has established a
charity to help other amputees achieve their sporting dreams.
erryn Harvey is the founding
director of the START Foundation,
which was established in 2013 to empower
amputees – in life through sport, and
specifically to assist them to achieve their
sporting dreams.

K

The START Foundation recognises the key
benefits from participation in sport for
amputees, which includes a sense of
achievement, improved health, social
interaction and engagement with the
community.
Thanks to the generous and ongoing
support of sponsors, donors and volunteers
the Foundation is able to provide grants for
a new limb, limb modification or
equipment modification, to enable
amputees to participate in their beloved
sport.
I discovered the Start Foundation while at
the recent Women’s Health and Fitness
Summit in Melbourne, where the
Foundation’s founder, Kerryn Harvey, was
the keynote speaker.
Kerryn is a cancer survivor. More than a
decade ago she battled and beat bowel
cancer. Now most of us might think this
would be enough of a challenge to deal
with in one lifetime, but as it turned out,
the universe wasn’t done with Kerryn yet!
Fast forward to 2013 and Kerryn was to
face a situation that just one in a million
people would ever have to deal with.
While on a cycling trip in Adelaide Kerryn

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OH! MAGAZINE ( NOVEMBER 2016 )

was knocked off her bike. After initially
receiving treatment for cuts and bruises,
she found herself in the Royal Adelaide
Hospital with a rare and aggressive
bacteria called necrotising fasciitis (you
may have heard of it as ‘flesh eating
disease’). The doctors say she most likely
picked up this bacteria from the road at
the site of her accident, which was a one
in a million chance.
Necrotising fasciitis is not curable and it is
life threatening if not treated immediately.
When Kerryn arrived at Royal Adelaide
Hospital, the infection was advanced and
she was not expected to survive. The only
option, , in an attempt to stay ahead of the
bacteria, was radical surgery to remove the
infected parts of her body. In Kerryn’s case
this meant amputation of her forequarter
arm, which involved the removal of her
arm and entire shoulder.

recently.
There was no greater feeling for Kerryn
than training for an event and arriving at
the start line feeling fit and ready to race,
and then successfully completing the
event and feeling the euphoria of crossing
the finish line with the knowledge that
she’d accomplished her goal. So it wasn’t
surprising that during the early stages of
her hospital stay, Kerryn was already
strategising with family and friends about
how she could make her sporting comeback
as an amputee!

Unfortunately, the bacteria had weakened
Kerryn’s entire body to the point where she
entered into multiple organ failure. Kerryn
spent a week on life support, endured 11
operations, and spent nearly three months
in hospital before she was strong enough
to return home to Melbourne.

During her rehabilitation and recovery, and
being back home with a newly acquired
disability, Kerryn had plenty of time to
reflect on what had happened. She’d
received so much support and assistance
from so many people during her time of
need that she knew she wanted to give
something back. Kerryn also felt it was
important to recognise the role that the
Royal Adelaide Hospital had in her
recovery, and equally importantly, she
wanted to highlight the positive impact
that participating in sport and being fit
and healthy can have, on one’s physical,
mental and emotional wellbeing.

The medical staff told Kerryn it was a true
miracle that she survived. They also told
her one very important piece of information
– she survived because she was very fit.

So together with her family and friends,
Kerryn hatched a plan to ride a bike from
Perth to Melbourne in 2015; a ride which
would serve two main purposes:

Much of Kerryn’s adult life had been about
actively participating in sport. Netball, and
squash in the earlier days, and running,
swimming, cycling and triathlon more

1. To raise funds and awareness for the
Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) Critical
Care Research Fund, because without
funding, the hospital cannot undertake