“Alex Murphy our managing director is a first responder with the North West Ambulance Service so I’ve seen first-hand the really important work that they do. I simply wanted to give something back and this was a way of doing that”, said Grant.

“It was an absolutely amazing experience. You don’t simply go from ‘A’ to ‘B’ to ‘C’. You have to acclimatise, so we were walking up the trail in the morning and then walking back down again in the afternoon, before moving on, so it was literally two steps forward, one step back. “But the scenery, the people and the culture were incredible. It’s an experience that will stay with me forever.”

Despite having trained for the challenge and with only 200 metres to go before reaching base camp, Grant collapsed with altitude sickness. “It [altitude sickness] effects people in different ways. We lost one of our party early on. I was almost there but then I felt very nauseous and the next thing I knew I was sat on the ground surrounded by everyone”, he recalls.
“Fortunately, I was able to recover my senses enough to make it to base camp with the help of one of our Sherpars.
“Going down was a lot easier”, he quips.

The North West Ambulance Charity funds lifesaving equipment, education programmes and other projects to benefit the health, well-being and safety of patients, staff and the wider community.
In the last year, the charity has funded the installation of more than 100 defibrillators in public places. Each defibrillator funded and installed increases the chances of survival for an out of hospital cardiac arrest from just 5% to over 75%, if used with effective CPR within the first four minutes of an arrest.

To donate please visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/grant-harvey5