A history teacher from County Durham is taking on the Great North Run in memory of her dad who collapsed and died in the family home minutes after arriving home from work.
Andy Crawley, 54, a long-distance lorry driver was found unresponsive by his wife, Joanne, in the hall of their home in Chester-le-Street in December 2022.
Efforts by Joanne and then paramedics to carry out CPR for more than 90 minutes failed.
A post-mortem examination revealed that Andy had been living with an undiagnosed heart condition since birth called bicuspid aortic valve where the aortic valve has two flaps, rather than the usual three.
He also had high lipoprotein – a type of particularly ‘sticky’ cholesterol that is associated with an increased risk of heart and circulatory diseases.
His daughter Michaela also has moderately raised LP levels but neither she nor her younger sister, Courtney, 24, had any problems associated with their heart valves.
In memory of her dad, Michaela is running the 13.1-mile course from Newcastle to South Shields on Sunday (September 8) to raise funds for the British Heart Foundation.
She says she will never forget the day all their lives changed forever when she lost her dad so suddenly and unexpectedly.
Michaela said: “I got a frantic call from my mam saying dad had collapsed by the front door.
"She’d come home and not been able to open the door. She thought Dad had left his bag against it, as sometimes he did this when he first came home from work as he would put his washing in the washing machine downstairs.
"She went round the back and found him collapsed by the door.
“It was quite a traumatic call to get and keep on the hands-free phone while I was driving to Mam.
"Driving home from Newcastle with traffic at the time should have taken about 30 minutes but it felt like a long journey. It felt like a lifetime.”
She added: “Taking on the Great North Run had been an ambition I’ve had any way before my dad passed.
"Mam ran it for the 30th anniversary and since then it’s something I’ve had in my mind.
“I’m not a natural-born athlete or runner but working hard at it. I know I’ll be tired as a teacher as we’ll have just returned to school.
“I want to do it for my dad and to raise money for the British Heart Foundation’s life-saving research. When we found out Dad’s cause of death, the BHF was our first port of call to find out what all of this meant.
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“My dad was the life and soul. Our happiest of places was Walt Disney World in Florida.
"As a family, we have been seven times. That is where some of the most amazing memories of dad come from. Dad would always get involved with the entertainment while we were away.
"At Circus Du Soleil, he was picked on by the clowns and asked up onto the stage. He took part in a tug of war in a show at Dolly Parton’s Ranch and, in Disney Land Paris was made Cowboy Andy and got to shoot at targets with Annie Oakley.”
People can donate to Michaela’s fundraising page here.
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