Inspiring Lancaster adventurer hosts one-man show

Being wheelchair bound for over two decades hasn’t stopped Shaun from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, completing a 100km obstacle course or sky diving at 15,000 feet.

Now the Lancaster dad-of-three is preparing to tell his inspirational story at a one-man talk show in Morecambe – and he even invited the Prime Minister to come along!

Although Shaun got a polite reply from Theresa May’s office declining due to “enormous pressures on her diary”, a Morecambe audience will be at the Platform this Thursday night (October 19) to hear his amazing tales.

As a young man Shaun was always very active and adventurous. He was captain of the rugby, volleyball, cricket and swimming teams at school, and canoed the Zambezi at 15.

But then a road accident in 1991 changed his life.

He was a back seat passenger in a car which turned over, throwing him out of the back window.

He sustained some major injuries, breaking his shoulder, ribs, puncturing his lungs and breaking his spine at T5/6 vertebrae leaving him completely paralysed from his chest down and at the time only given two days to live.

Shaun spent months in Southport Spinal Injuries hospital and a further three-and-a-half years in a rehab home for spinal injuries where he met a nurse called Dawn.

They fell in love, got married, and Dawn has been at his side supporting him ever since during his life of meeting huge challenges head-on. They have three children, Sharna, Kyle and Niamh.

Over the years Shaun’s adventures have raised almost £80,000 for many different charities.

He is the first wheelchair adaptive athlete to have completed in two UK Obstacle Course Racing Championships and was the first paraplegic to attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro following the Rongai Route, reaching 16,700 feet before having to evacuate. He plans to revisit Mount Kilimanjaro in 2018 to finish off what he set out to accomplish.

In 2017, he took part in a Twenty 20 Challenge, pushing himself in his wheelchair from Lands End to John O’Groats. This helped Heysham teenager Joe Shaw who has leukaemia by funding roof repairs for his house.

Shaun is also a keen wheelchair basketball player and coaches junior players for Lancaster Bulldogs.

He hopes his show will inspire people “never to put off until tomorrow what they can do today” – something he knows only too well.

“At one point they gave me two days to live,” he said.

“But I’m still here.”

‘One Night, Four Wheels, No Stand Up’ starts at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £12 available from the Platform box office on 01524 582803 or HERE.