‘Real life superhero’ shares stories with Kingston Hospital staff

Jamie McDonald spent most of the first nine years of his life in a hospital due to a series of medical conditions, including an immune deficiency, epilepsy and a spinal condition.

“I just got so much help from the Children’s hospital,” McDonald said of that period in his life.

Back in 2013, he was 26 years old and getting ready for the next step of his life: buying a home. But on a whim, he decided to run across Canada instead.

Dressed mostly in superhero garb, hence the name ‘Adventureman’, he used the 5000-mile trip to raise funds for Children’s Charities in Canada and back home in the United Kingdom.

“Instead of getting a house, I actually reflected on my life and I just thought maybe I’m in a position to give back to the hospital that helped me,” McDonald said.

McDonald has embarked on a number of these types of trips before. In 2012 he cycled from Bangkok, Thailand to his hometown of Gloucester in England, an astonishing 14,000 miles, all while raising funds for different children’s hospitals along the way.

Now, he is retracing the route he took in 2013, but this time on a motivational speaking tour. On Thursday he stopped in Kingston to speak with more than one hundred staff at Kingston Health Sciences Centre.

“He has a lot of wisdom that he can share with us,” Jane Warner, director of Professional Practice at Kingston Health Sciences Centre said. “We’ll be able to learn from that. That’s what we’re trying to do every day, is learn from our patients of their experience with us.”

Funds from this tour will go towards Toronto’s Sick Kids hospital, where he’ll be spending the holidays. McDonald’s speaking tour ends on Feb. 26 in Victoria, B.C.