SMA charity climber uses assistive technology to summit Mount Snowdon
On Saturday 15 June, Maxwell McKnight, a 20-year-old man with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) from St Neots, successfully took on a massive challenge. He summited Mount Snowdon in an all-terrain powerchair.
Along with Josh Wintersgill, who unfortunately was unable to join Maxwell on the day due to health considerations, Maxwell had planned for this ascent to raise funds for new powerchairs to meet the needs of people with SMA in the UK.
The name of the Snowdon project comes from a motto close to Josh’s heart, Know No Bounds. The challenge caught wider public attention, with Maxwell already having given TV interviews. At the time of writing, the funds raised through donations to the Know No Bounds Snowdon ascent stand at £40,000 and rising.
Maxwell’s story starts off with a chance encounter: “I actually met Josh [Wintersgill] at an SMA UK event and he bought the X8 and I went out on it for the first time and I was just ramming it, on the beach and up kerbs. So I was like, this is just insane…I was like, I’ve gotta climb Snowdon with him”
Soon after Maxwell came on board, Josh got Lifestyle & Mobility involved. The planning process took six months – unsurprising, considering the scale of what the two friends were aiming to achieve.
An aspect of the journey which Maxwell hadn’t expected was the overwhelmingly positive reaction of others on the mountain to what he was trying to achieve: “Apparently it was like Chinese Whispers.”
The Know No Bounds plan hoped to capture people’s imaginations, with photos from the climb revealing how treacherous the conditions were.
The national media are already paying attention. Maxwell’s Know No Bounds adventure has made an appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, ITV NEWS at 10, and the Independent newspaper has also reported on his achievement.
Following Maxwell McKnight’s successful journey up Mount Snowdon using a Sunrise Medical X8 all-terrain powerchair, Darren Macey, Business Development Manager at Lifestyle & Mobility and one of Maxwell’s fellow travellers up Mount Snowdon, said: “Initially it was Josh [Josh Wintersgill, whose idea is was to climb Mt Snowdon in a powerchair] who got in touch with this idea. I just always do weird things…Anything that’s a bit out there, you know!”
Ultimately the aim was of course to support the Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) charity itself. In particular, this support would be given by raising the funds for some bespoke, top-of-the-line powerchairs, suitable for the needs of users with SMA.
John Barnsley, Sunrise Medical Area Sales Manager for the South East, took a particularly hands-on role with this project. Darren praises him for the technical assistance with the Sunrise Medical X8 which he gave throughout the process.
Darren commented: “Nobody actually knew whether this chair would actually make it up, and, if it did, whether there would be any problems”.
Maxwell is waiting to hear back from Guinness book of records as he had an official time recorded, trying to be the fastest powerchair user up Mount Snowdon. The campaign has raised £40,000 pounds already and with the extra press is only going to continue to grow.
Darren added, “The general public was amazing. The thing that got me was actually the general public, going up the mountain.
“Because Snowdon’s a busy mountain – there’s a lot of people there that’re doing time trials, or the Three Peaks. But the general public was amazing, it was actually quite emotional at one point. The public was just stopping in awe…clapping.”