Stratford man told he would never walk completes 2,650-mile trek

When Will Baxter was 13, he was on a school trip when he suffered a sudden brain haemorrhage and went into a coma.

He recovered but was left paralysed down the left side of his body and doctors told him he would probably need to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Eleven years later and he has just finished the Pacific Crest Trail, hiking on his own across deserts, forests and mountains from Mexico to Canada., all in aid of charity.

“I don’t think I should ever have been told by that consultant that I would never walk again,” Mr Baxter, from Stratford-upon-Avon, said.

“It was just a few weeks later I hobbled back into that consultant’s office on crutches, trying to prove a point – and I suppose I’m still trying to prove that today.

“I’m so grateful that I never believed them because I think we should be trying to keep the hope alive in children’s minds.”

Across five months, the 24-year-old crossed 58 mountain summits, glaciers and deserts, covering up to 25 miles a day and wearing through five pairs of hiking shoes.

At times he said he was living on not much water, finding it from source to source but admitted nothing he faced on the 2,650-mile (4,265km) trek was like the early stages of his recovery at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

“Genuinely nothing compares or will ever be as hard as it was to take those first ten steps across a hospital ward,” he said.

His mother, Suzanne Taylor, said his determination had been clear from the start of his recovery.

“He was stubborn even as a toddler,” she said.

“We had an assessment at home [where] they said he’d need a bed downstairs and rails on the stairs and he said ‘don’t bother because I won’t need it and if you put it up I won’t use it’.

“When he got home he crawled upstairs and onto his bed.

“That determination got him through everything.”

His hiking efforts have raised more than £13,000 for the Child Brain Injury Trust who have supported him from the moment he was airlifted to Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

A spokesperson said they were now making him an ambassador for the charity.