10 Year Old Ethan Rises To New Heights On DG Three Peak Challenge

10 Year Old Lockerbie boy Ethan Mungall who attends Eaglesfield Primary School, walked the Dumfries and Galloway 3 peaks on Saturday the 11th of May, a 9.7 mile 26,000 step challenge that covered Grey Mares tail, the Waterloo monument at New Abbey and Criffel. That may sound like quite a challenge to most of us, but considering Ethan has been poorly and in out of hospital most of his life, it makes his acheivement even more impresive.

Ethans Mum Samantha Mungall told DGWGO what makes Ethan so special;

“I want to share a story about my lovely young boy Ethan who’s 10. On saturday Ethan completed the Dumfries and Galloway 3 peaks challenge. This was the Grey Mares, Waterloo and the Criffel. He completed 9.7 miles and 26000 steps. He was absolutely amazing. But what makes this more amazing is that Ethan has spent 8 years of his life having frequent bouts of serious chest infections, fainting episodes, absent seizures and serious cases of croup, and we also recently found out he has an irregular heartbeat.

He was often hospitalised at least once a month. We moved up to Scotland from the city around a year and half a go. The month before we moved to Scotland  Ethan was hospitalised 3 times in two weeks due to absent seizures. But since we moved Ethan has not had any episodes of serious illness, only one bout of mild croup and the doctors here were absolutely amazing in treating him.”

Samantha Continued “We are not sure if this is due to him growing out of his illnesses or that the good old Dumfries and Galloway country air has improved his health. Anyhow, Ethan got wind that his mummy and daddy were going to do a three peaks challange to raise funds for a friends medical treatment. Ethan asked if he could do it too. I was very concerned giving his history however I didn’t want to hold him back.

We allowed him to do the walk on the day so long as he lets us know at any point it’s too much. He was an absolute star, he has such a caring nature that his main concern was that his mummy and daddy were okay, bless his heart.”

Upon reaching the summit of the Criffel (the third hill we climbed) Ethan gave his mummy the biggest hug and said, “I feel like I am on top of the world, the view is amazing and I can’t believe I’ve done it”.

Samantha Said “It was the emotional hug to say the least. And we are one very proud mummy and daddy.”