This article is from page 20 of the 2011-12-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 20 JPG
ITS official – Christy Healy has been confirmed as a Guinness world record holder.
In October the Kilmaley man became the first person to successfully complete a 10km underwater dive. Christy completed the swim in Lough Derg in a time of 6 hours, 21 minutes.
All records and evidence from the mammoth undertaking were then turned over to Guinness for rigorous inspection. And Christy and his support team passed with flying colours. Christy was presented with his official certificate from Guinness at the Children of Courage awards for the Share a Dream foundation in Limerick last weekend.
Diving instructor Christy took on the challenge to raise money for the Share A Dream foundation. He was inspired to do after his family was affected by cancer.
In March 2010 Christy and wife Trish’s son Stephen, then aged 17, was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma – a cancer of the lymphoid tissue.
Thankfully, after six months of chemotherapy and a kidney operation, Stephen has been given the all clear.
In total, Christy’s world recordbreaking dive raised € 14,500 for Share a Dream.
“We finally got it. There was a lot of toing and froing. But it’s in there now and we’ll find out if we’re going to make it into the book next year. It’s worth it. A lot of effort went into from a lot of different people,” said Christy last week.
While Christy was fairly certain his lung-busting efforts had secured him a place in the world famous publication, the timing of the official confirmation came as a bit of a surprise.
He explained, “I thought it would be this week or next week or the week after it. I was kind of surprised in Limerick but I knew we would get it. It was just a matter of getting all the information and documents into Guinness.”
Having witnessed the courage of children affected by serious illness and disability, Christy said he would be keen to undertake another recordbreaking effort to raise money for Share a Dream next year.
“What we did was handy when you compare it to what these young people and their parents go through,” he added.
A team in excess of 20 people including snorkelers, rescue divers, paramedics, navigators, observers and support personnel assisted Christy on the day of underwater dive.