Running 100 miles sounds like pure hell for most people. Not for Brian Boyle. That’s because traveling that far on foot means his heart is pumping and his lungs are working — functions we so easily take for granted.
If you remember back to when we first covered the 31-year-old from Washington D.C., he told us about his life-altering car accident when he was 18. He was in the ICU for more than two months after being hit by a dump truck on his way home from swim practice.
His heart shifted to the other side of his body, he had shattered ribs, a broken pelvis, a lacerated liver and kidney, a collapsed lung and he coded eight times in the emergency room.
He lost 100 pounds and was so weak he couldn’t even blink. He also lost 60% of his blood supply, but thanks to the American Red Cross and their legion of blood donors (he had 36 blood transfusions and 13 plasma treatments), he was able to continue fighting for his life.
That’s why on Dec. 2, Boyle will take on the Devil Dog 100-mile ultramarathon in Triangle, Virginia, running the race to get 100 people to donate blood.
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