Grandmother ditches 185-mile walk

Ms Shepperd wants researchers to find the cause of pre-eclampsia

A grandmother has had to abandon her planned 13-day trek for charity from Herefordshire to Dorset due to injury.

Lindy Shepperd was raising money for Tommy's, a charity researching the life-threatening illness pre-eclampsia, which affects pregnant women.

She began her 185-mile (298km) journey on Monday in Hereford, but slipped and hurt her leg. She walked 35 miles before it became too painful to go on.

"I am very, very disappointed," she said. She had hoped to raise £2,000.

Her swollen knee and foot caused her to stop on her third day of walking.

She had been due to finish her walk in Poole, Dorset.

The 185-mile walk from Hereford to Dorset was abandoned on day three

Ms Shepperd said that she was thinking of other substitute fundraising methods and all her donors had agreed to still contribute the money they pledged.

Ms Shepperd, who works at Cranfield University at Shrivenham in Oxfordshire, survived pre-eclampsia with her second born, Lucy, in 1982, and with the birth of two grandchildren this year, she decided to draw attention to the condition.

One in 12 pregnancies are affected in the UK each year and, on average, seven women and 600 babies die from the disorder, according to the charity.

Pre-eclampsia has been known about for more than 150 years but the exact cause is not known.

Last year, Ms Shepperd started a project named Fingerprints & Footprints to raise money through sponsored walks for various causes.

She and a friend completed 170 miles (274km) and raised £3,600 for a chronic liver disease research unit at Hammersmith Hospital.