MND campaigner's race chair donated for future use

A race chair built for a motor neurone disease campaigner has been donated for others with the condition to use in the future.

Sam Perkins, who died last year, raced in the London Marathon twice using the chair.

Perkins' wife, Emma, said it was an "incredibly emotional" thing to pass on.

The chair has been donated to Delichon Limited, which had modified it for Sam, and it will be prioritised for people with the disease and for those fundraising for Sam's charity Stand Against MND.

Sam, from East Leake in Nottinghamshire, was diagnosed with MND in 2019 when he was 37 years old.

He raised more than £250,000 for MND research through the charity.

Emma said: "It really does feel like we're meeting our commitment to Sam, that we will keep your legacy going beyond your passing.

"It's raising awareness, helping to raise funds, and, for Sam, this [was] such a personal goal for him.

"He had that ambition all his life to complete the London Marathon and he did it in that chair.

"It's an incredibly emotional thing for us to be able to donate that chair to continue to be used."

Emma believed that taking part in challenges, like the marathon, allowed Sam to live for longer after being diagnosed.

She said: "When you're diagnosed with motor neurone disease, you get given a life expectancy of a maximum of around two years, and Sam survived six years beyond his diagnosis.

"He absolutely loved doing the challenges, like testing things and pushing people to do more than they thought that they reasonably could.

"I have got absolutely no shadow of doubt that's what enabled him to survive so long with such a horribly short prognosis."

Martin Davy, managing director of Delichon Ltd, collected the chair back on Sunday.

He said the company made "quite a lot of adaptations" to the chair to make it suitable for Sam, including fitting a ventilator.

Davy said: "He never stopped planning challenges, and to some extent I think that gave him the determination to go on.

"Because he always had things to do, he always had another challenge in the pipeline.

"He was never going to give up."

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