Kildare man makes life-changing donation to spinal cord injury programme

Kilcock man Lester Cassidy has donated €150,000 to the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) and Spinal Injuries Ireland.

In 1998, at 19 years of age, Lester was a patient in the NRH Spinal Cord Injury Programme following a workplace accident, which resulted in irreparable damage to his spinal cord. In summer 2022, Lester took on this very unique challenge as he wanted to give back to two charity organisations that helped him on his own personal journey following his accident.

After climbing Croagh Patrick and raising a phenomenal amount of money for two charities, Lester Cassidy and his family paid a visit to the NRH to see first-hand the impact his fundraising has made to the Spinal Cord Injury Service in the hospital.

In order for Lester to scale Croagh Patrick a special buggy was built and the challenge involved a committed and dedicated team that pushed the buggy up to the summit and then brought Lester back down the mountain safely again. This amazing fundraising campaign involved an army of dedicated people from Lester’s community – and through this phenomenal dedication the outstanding sum of €150,000 was raised, with funds divided to support Spinal Injuries Ireland and the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) Spinal Programme.

This amazing support to the  NRH Spinal Cord Injury Programme has enabled the purchase of some very specialist rehabilitation equipment to support the patients of the service for many years to come. This equipment included specialist sports wheelchairs, a bariatric Wheelchair, a bariatric Shower Chair and a specialised power wheelchair with additional accessories. Lester himself recently joined the Ballybrack Bulls Basketball Squad and some of his team mates joined him in the NRH to check out these newly purchased sports chairs. The Ballybrack Bulls train weekly in the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH).

Speaking at the unveiling of some of this equipment in the NRH, John Lynch, the Spinal Injury Programme Manager said: "The NRH Spinal Programme will be forever indebted to Lester and his family for this phenomenal amount of money raised to support the service. Specialist rehabilitation equipment is extremely expensive but now through Lester’s dedication and generosity, we have been able to purchase these new and much needed pieces of equipment for the benefit of the patient now and into the future."