Bionic legs put Mark on right path for charity

Blind and paralysed from the waist down, adventurer Mark Pollock continues to defy the odds by walking in a pioneering bionic suit.

Mark yesterday walked in the suit to launch Run in the Dark — now a global fundraising event for the Mark Pollock Trust and disability charities.

The event, in its second year, incorporates five official locations in Ireland, Britain, and the US, and multiple pop-up events around the world.

Mark, who turned blind overnight at the age of 22, is well known as an extreme adventurer, but it was a fall which left him paralysed two years ago which has led him to become the first person to individually own a pair of pioneering Ekso bionic legs.

“I’d heard about them about two months after the accident,” he said.

“I was lying in a hospital bed and they were then just in the early stages. I first tried them in February of this year in the Ekso headquarters in California and about once a month since then in Cambridge. I got my own set in October so I am getting fairly competent in them.”

Great night in Dublin for the @mark_pollock #runinthedark If only every 10km was as enjoyable! http://t.co/XKJopPiK

— Claire Heskin (@heskinc) November 15, 2012

While the health benefits of exercise are well documented in able-bodied people, this is not yet the case for people with spinal injuries. By trialling the bionic legs, Mark hopes to aid research into how they help paralysed people psychologically as well as physically.

“When you are in a wheelchair, your whole perspective on the world changes. Just to stand up and feel what it was like to walk again was very empowering.”

Mark will build an individual case study on how the bionic legs can help someone who is both blind and paralysed. In tandem with that, Mark is also training for another adventure, this time in the Black Ice Race in Siberia.

“When I was lying in bed after my fall, it was a very low time for me. I was 18 months in hospital and my resolve had gone. I really did rely on family and friends and I was trying to set something to aim for. That was to walk again and get back to adventure racing, so Siberia is very much the goal now.”

Support the Mark Pollock Trust Run in the Dark fundraising events online at www.runinthedark.org