Deaf man completes 15 hour Channel swim, raising thousands for Deaflympics athletes

A Deaf man completed an epic 15 hour swim across the English Channel late last night, raising thousands of pounds to help Deaf athletes compete at the Deaflympics in 2017.

Andrew Rees is well known in the Deaf community for his involvement in Deaf sports over many years, and recently turned his attention to swimming the Channel in support of UK Deaf Sport.

His achievement was followed by hundreds of Deaf people across the UK, many of whom stayed up until midnight following his progress.

Andrew’s Facebook page says:

My name is Andrew Rees and I am profoundly deaf. I will be swimming the English Channel in July 2016 solo.

I decided to undertake a challenge and that is to swim the Channel. I have been fund raising for over a year now and have raised just over £3,000 and my target is £5,000.

Here’s Andrew during his swim, being passed (or possibly passing!) a cruise ship.

Events took a dramatic turn late yesterday evening as the tide pushed Andrew away from landing on the beach.

As darkness fell, regular Facebook updates were posted by his team, along with links to a live map showing his progress.

Deaf people across the UK posted hundreds of supportive comments online, willing him on.

Just after 11.30pm there was finally good news as a post said that Andrew was following a dingy to the beach.

Then, just before midnight, was the news everyone had been waiting for:

As Andrew arrived on French shores, he had raised over £3500 of his £6000 target.

Well done Andrew!

If you’d like to help Andrew raise more money towards his target, click here to go to the fundraising page.