Family of Terrington St Clement girl Abigail Newell, 11, rally round to raise funds for special wheelchair

Caring family members are pulling together to try to raise around £4,200 to buy 11-year-old Abigail Newell a special wheelchair.

Abigail, who lives at Terrington St Clement, suffers from spina bifida, catastrophic epilepsy and scoliosis and is unable to walk.

Her parents have recently been given the bad news that it is not possible to operate to help her spine meaning that the curvature will get worse and make her life more and more uncomfortable.

There is a special wheel chair that Abigail can have specially moulded to her spine to help make her more comfortable but it costs £4200 and is not available on the NHS.

When they heard the news, her brother Jonathan (17) and nephews Joshua Clements (15) and Sam Clements (11) and Benjamin Eldridge (11) and his brother Edward (5) decided they needed to do something to help Abigail.

“It was Sam's idea. He wanted to do a sponsored swim of some sort and the rest were eager to get involved so they turned it into a triathlon,” said Sam's mum Holly who lives at Sutton Bridge.

The boys started the ball rolling at the weekend with their own swimming, cycling and running relay which raised an impressive £800.

Samuel led the way by is going to swim 1.5km at the Hudson swimming pool. He then passed the baton to Joshua who cycled 16km from Wisbech to Terrington St Clement before the final leg was completed by Benjamin who ran 10km from Terrington St Clement to the Walks in Kings Lynn. Even little Edward was determined to take part so he joined Ben for the final 2km of his run with a lap of the Walks.

“We wanted to use our bodies to raise money to help Abigail be more comfortable with hers,” they said.

In the next few weeks, two of the youngest members of the family, Rosie Clements, aged 8, from Sutton Bridge and Florence Eldridge (7) are planning to do their bit by organising a cake stall.

Abigail lives with her mum and dad, Ian and Tracy Newell and attends Meadowgate Academy, in Wisbech.

On top of their fundraising at the weekend, the boys have set up a Justgiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/trialthon4abigail

One donor posted: “Wow, what inspirational children you all are. Abigail is so lucky to have such a amazing family".