Dad wins double gold 28 years after heart transplant

The first place finishes were in addition to four silver medals the 58-year-old achieved earlier in the week in the swimming pool and volleyball

An NHS worker is celebrating the anniversary of his life-saving heart transplant by winning two gold medals.

On July 27, exactly 28 years after undergoing the lifesaving surgery, Rob Hodgkiss, from Bolton in Greater Manchester, won gold in discus and 200m track at the European Transplant Sports Championships.

The first place finishes were in addition to four silver medals the 58-year-old achieved earlier in the week in the swimming pool and volleyball.

The British team also topped the medal table and won trophies for the best heart and lung transplant team and best overall team at the 2024 edition of the games held in Lisbon, Portugal.

Mr Hodgkiss has enjoyed a 21-year career working for Bolton NHS Foundation Trust

Mr Hodgkiss underwent a heart transplant at the age of 30 at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle, while he was working as a dentist in the city.

He suffered a rapid illness due to cardiomyopathy - with only eight weeks between being admitted to hospital with shortness of breath to being discharged following a lifesaving heart transplant.

Unfortunately, hand tremors, that are a side effect of his lifelong immunosuppressant medication, prevented the return to a career in dentistry so Mr Hodgkiss returned to university to study physiotherapy.

Qualifying in 2003 from University of Salford, Mr Hodgkiss has enjoyed a 21-year career working for Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and now works as an practice education facilitator, supporting students on placement at the trust.

He said: "It’s always amazing to take part in transplant sports events, knowing that everyone there is only alive due to the selfless gift of a donated organ.

"It was especially poignant to win the gold medals on the anniversary of my transplant and to look back at my life over the last 28 years, knowing none of it would have happened without my transplant."

Mr Hodgkiss won gold in discus and 200m track at the European Transplant Sports Championships

Mr Hodgkiss said: "I’m really passionate about promoting organ donation, having seen one of the three people on the cardiac ward in Newcastle with me on the transplant waiting list die without the chance of a transplant.

"There are currently more than 7,500 people in the UK waiting for a lifesaving transplant and too many still die without getting the chance of a transplant."

Mr Hodgkiss lives with his wife Julie and has a daughter Bethany, who had her first birthday just two weeks after his transplant, and son Adam, who was born two years after the transplant.

He added: "People often say how unlucky I was to need a transplant aged only 30, but I feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance of the gift of life from a transplant and the 28 years with my family that wouldn’t have been possible without the selfless gift of donation."