Man to take part in marathon – after learning to walk again

A MAN who learned to walk again after being crushed to within an inch of his life in a freak farmyard accident is planning to take part in a marathon to raise money for the hospital that saved his life.

Farmer Pat Holland, 61, was crushed under a massive trailer laden with hay in the horrific accident on his west Cork farm last September.

He suffered massive internal injuries – his lungs and stomach were crushed, his liver was sliced in two, his kidneys stopped working, and he spent six weeks of his 12-week stay in hospital in a medically induced coma. But now his family, from Coomhola, Bantry, has entered the relay race section of the Cork City marathon and Pat plans to walk, hand-in-hand with his grandson, Dylan, five, the last few hundred yards, to raise money for the Mercy University Hospital Foundation.