Stroke survivor to run 300km for Fred this August
At 17, Joshua Ditchmen suffered a sudden stroke which impaired his vision – now the 20 year old is running to raise funds to restore eyesight.
This October, it will have been three years since Joshua Ditchmen was struck down by a stroke that caused a traumatic brain injury and impaired his vision.
Ditchmen recalls being at a family friend’s property for an NRL Grand Final weekend when a quad bike accident caused severe brain injury and the stroke.
He was airlifted to hospital and placed in a medically-induced coma and given a only a one to three percent chance of survival.
“It kind of just kind of happened out of nowhere, just like completely out of the blue,” Ditchmen says. “They don’t even know why it happened.”
Three years later and Joshua Ditchmen is back to his active lifestyle – but it’s taken years of relearning how to walk and talk, and live with impaired vision.
You might like
Living with impaired and double vision has meant Ditchmen is closely aligned with the mission of the Fred Hollows Foundation “A world in which no person is needlessly blind or vision impaired”, and will be completing Fred’s Big Run for the second time this year.
“I do believe that before my accident, I definitely took it for granted, and I understand the struggle of being visually impaired now,” he says.
He adds that raising funds for someone he will never see or know is a very rewarding experience, especially for a condition that is often avoidable.
“If I could talk to pre-stroke and brain injury me, I’d say go out there and do it.”
“That’s what I love about Fred’s Big Run,” Ditchmen says. “I push the people around me to break their own limiting beliefs about their physical capabilities and they get to the end of the month having done a lot more than they thought they would be able to.
“It’s a good feeling for me to be able to give that to them.”
Stay informed, daily
Ditchmen also spends his time doing motivational speeches at schools across the South East Queensland region, where he shares his story and how he built mental resilience and overcame adversity.
“I’ve seen firsthand the kind of impact I can have on young people,” Ditchmen says. “Students have come up to me afterwards and skipped the introductions and just started telling me all about their life and what kind of adversity they’ve overcome in their lives.”
He adds that seeing the impact he can have on others is an amazing feeling, one so strong that it helped him overcome his fear of public speaking.
“The part of my recovery that I’m most proud of is definitely how mentally strong I can be when I’m physically weak.
“This stroke has caused so many different injuries – so many days I’ve gotten up sore, tired, injured and I still ran or swam or cycled or even walked anyway.”
For Ditchmen, completing Fred’s Big Run is like hitting two birds with one stone – he is continuing his motivational work by fighting for a cause close to his heart, while also training his physical side in preparation for his para-sport career.
“The first year I did it, I put a conservative goal of 150km, and then last year I got close to 300km,” Ditchmen says. “This year I’m hoping to break the 300km mark.”
Hardly a week into August, and Ditchmen has completed close to 40km already, despite pulling up with a small injury in his first 5km.
“There’s kind of two groups of people who haven’t signed up, those who are doing the physical activity and the people who aren’t,” Joshua says.
“So the people who are doing the physical activity but haven’t decided to sign up yet, I’d say well, you’re already doing the hard part, you might as well sign up and help raise some funds for an incredible foundation.”
Want to see more stories from InDaily Qld in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily Qld as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily Qld". That's it.
