A group of Welshmen are set to embark on one of the greatest physical challenges there is by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro – and one of them will be doing it on crutches. Mal Emerson’s life changed in a matter of minutes in 1997 when he was involved in a horrific industrial accident which saw heavy machinery completely crush his leg, putting him in hospital for six weeks before he was bed-bound at home for a further five months.
It took Mal, from Port Talbot, years to come to terms with the incident and he struggled for a long time having to re-learn how to walk while also battling post-traumatic stress disorder from the ordeal. "Walking was incredibly difficult – there was no movement," Mal told us when we caught up with him in 2019. "For three years I didn't have the spring in my foot to be able to kick off and take a proper step from it. I've had six operations. There is no quick fix for the injuries I sustained – I just coped okay for 10 years and didn't really talk about things."
As well as the physical trauma Mal experienced the ordeal took a toll on his mental health. Though he was eventually able to return to work he wasn't happy and found himself particularly low in 2016, almost 20 years after the incident. "I couldn't see a future," he told us previously. "I hated the dark nights with a vengeance. Everything seemed colourless to me. I would walk as far as I could, full well knowing that I wouldn't be able to get back. It was a way of torturing and self-harming myself. I realised that I couldn't give 100% but I thought: 'Well, if ever yday I could do 1% better, then I'm getting somewhere.'"
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Mal decided to build up his strength by walking using his crutches and each day set himself a target to walk slightly further than the day before. He found that longer walks cleared his mind and enjoyed sharing photos from his walks online.
"A couple of the lads said that they would like to join me on a walk so I posted a date, time, and meeting point of my next trip out and I was astounded when 16 of them were there,” he told us previously. A few months later Mal's Marauders – now named Marauders Men's Health – was formed.
"It's a really simple concept. All you need is a flask and a rucksack. We start walking and after a little while you will just see these blokes start to open up and talk. We rate the walks on difficulty from one to 10 and we always walk to the speed of the slowest walker so it can be suitable to anyone and everyone,” Mal said.
The group aims to "connect" men and "break down the stigma of men's mental health" by encouraging men to open up and talk about their experiences to people who understand and can empathise. The group offers a wide range of walks each week as well as intense one-off challenges. It’s Mal and six others from the men's mental health group who will climb 63km through the jungle and rough terrain to an altitude of 5,895 metres – more than six and a half times Pen Y Fan – at Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania as a challenge for themselves and also to raise funds for the group, which is now a registered charity.
Maurauders Men's Health has around 160 members and seven of them, including founder Mal, will climb Kilimanjaro. To prepare themselves they've been completing six walks a week, many of which have been uphill – but being based in south Wales they can't prepare for the temperature changes or altitude challenges they'll experience on their way to the summit.
"The difficulty is going to be the altitude – you can't train for that. We don't know who/what will be a problem – but giving up is not an option," Mal said. "We'll be climbing through a range of temperatures from 30°C to -15°C.”
Asked whose idea it was Mal said it was he and another member of the group who pitched the idea to the others. They'd. been watching YouTube videos and felt that climbing Kilimanjaro was a challenge they wanted to take on – and Mal had already climbed Ben Nevis on crutches before so wanted to face an even greater challenge.
One of the men set to climb the mountain with Mal is Andy Lee. He was drawn to Marauders Men's Health group several years ago and has seen the group evolve with more and more men now using the group's walks as an opportunity to have important conversations about their mental health and how they're feeling. "Over time you start to open up and talk about problems you wouldn't typically open up about, even to your close friends," he said. "It's non-judgemental and people are talking about their own experiences. We've got a real range of mental health challenges in the Marauders Men's Health group – a couple of guys have injuries, one man in his 20s has a stroke, it's a mixture."
Explaining the route he, Mal, and other members of the group will take up Kilimanjaro he added: "We're going on October 4 and back on October 14. The trek starts on October 5 and on the seventh day we should reach the summit. Then we come back down. Each of us have own our challenges physically and mentally – we're going to have to dig deep, especially on the last day. There's seven of us in our 50s and 60s. We all have reasonable fitness but this will be a big challenge.”
Each of the men have different personal and mental health challenges, Andy said, but they are feeling ready, if a little apprehensive, for what lies ahead. The men have set up an online fundraiser to draw attention to their Kilimanjaro climb and to raise funds for Marauders Men’s Health. Go here to support their efforts.
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