Two Mile House GAA Club to host fundraising run for brave Adam tomorrow
By Kim O’Leary
Tomorrow will see a very special event take place as Two Mile House GAA Club in Kildare is set to host a fundraising initiative for brave 21-year-old Adam Burke, who suffered a stroke while playing for the club’s football team in July 2016.
Adam played forward for the Two Mile House GAA football team and the talented young man, who scored 2-2 from play in Two Mile House’s All-Ireland Club Junior Championship Final victory in Croke Park in 2014, collapsed on the pitch in the second half of a club-game in July last year.
His father Willie was watching the match from the sidelines and he knew that there was something out of the ordinary with his son's behaviour on the pitch.
Speaking to KFM’s Shane Beatty yesterday, Willie said: "I just saw him getting a crunching tackle into his chest. He was attended to on the ground, thankfully he got up but didn't take much part in the next few minutes of the game because it was coming up to half time. He came out in the second half and drifted his man over near us and our eyes met and I just saw that he was grey in the face, he didn’t look well at all.”
Willie said: “I don't know why I was tracking him, suddenly I just saw him out in midfield and he put his hand up to his head and then just fell onto the ground. I jumped over the fence and ran into him and took him by the hand and I could tell he was in terrible trouble."
An ambulance was called and Adam was rushed to Naas General Hospital, where doctors realised that his brain was swelling and he needed a life-saving operation at Beaumont Hospital to remove his skull-cap and allow his brain to swell naturally.
Catherine said:" We were given the news at that point that he had a 20% chance of living and if he did live that the chances of us communicating, walking, talking or interacting with us were very slim. He was in a coma for two weeks and he was very sick when he came out of the coma.”
She said: “He recognised us but his right side was paralysed but it gave us great hope and through those dark days a light was beginning to shine a little bit, that was a great turning point for us.”
The stroke left Adam with a number of challenging injuries as he suffered paralysis of his right arm and hand, weakness of his right leg, increased fatigue, and also damage to the part of the brain that controls language and speech.
Adam spent three months in Beaumont Hospital engaging in a gruelling multi-disciplinary rehabilitation before beginning a further three-month intensive rehabilitation programme at the National Rehabilitation Hospital, Dun Laoghaire.
Through hard work and with the help of his therapists and the support of his loving family, Adam has made great progress and has gone from being bed and wheelchair-bound to walking again.
It is estimated that the total cost of Adam’s future rehabilitation including physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy along with life adaptations will be in excess of one million euro.
As part of their fund-raising initiatives, the Burke family and Two Mile House GAA Club are hosting a family day of fun that includes 5k and 10k fun-runs.
Tickets are €25 and include a t-shirt and entry to the BBQ that evening. The BBQ will be followed by a celebrity GAA Panel hosted by Marty Morrissey with special guests Davy Fitzgerald, Joe Brolly, Michael Duignan and Tomás Ó Sé.
To find out more about Adam’s story and the family’s fund-raising initiatives, visit the website www.runforadamburke