Mum of three in charity firewalk

1:18pm Wednesday 17th September 2003

A mum-of-three braved the heat when she walked on red-hot embers on Saturday night – raising £1,000 to help save the hospital unit which changed her daughter’s life.

Louise Mote is feeling invincible after her 1,200F firewalk, in aid of the Aplastic Anemia Unit at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, where her five-year-old daughter Melissa was given a bone marrow transplant almost exactly a year ago.

Last month the Life reported how the Mote family, from Lynwood Road, Redhill, were told the transplant was the best hope for Melissa who had been diagnosed with the rare form of anaemia. Her little brother Adam, 3, stepped in to donate his bone marrow.

Louise, 36, was one of around 25 performing the pain-defying dash to the applause of crowds of supporters, after just two hours of on site training at the Frog and Forget Me Not pub, Tooting.

“It was great,” she said. “It makes you think you can do anything.

“A lot of people even wanted to queue up and do it a second time.

“Some people said it hurt but I just felt a sort of buzzing feeling in my feet.

“But I didn’t want to do it again - I didn’t want to push my luck.” Louise described how the team’s spirits were raised by the trainer from Blaze Firewalking: “The chap training us was a big burly ex-martial artist. He did it to prove they were prepared to do it too.

“It was like Jerry Springer. You had to make a lot of noise when the others went across. Then when I did it I had to do a lot of shouting and punching the air.” And it doesn’t end there. She wants her husband James, 36, to sign up to one of the annual fundraising challenges posed by the Aplastic Anemia Trust, which was behind this event.

Before her transplant Melissa was a familiar weekly face in the unit, and she was subjected to around 30 blood transfusions.

Now, her visits for blood tests are down to once monthly, and Louise has been told her daughter can be taken off some of the drugs she takes to prevent her system rejecting the bone marrow.

For more information on the threatened closure at the unit, go to www.theaat.org.uk