Alnwick woman becomes first solo English Channel stoma swimmer

A woman has become the first person with a stoma to swim solo across the English Channel.

Gill Castle swam mostly in the dark from Dover to France in just under 14 hours to raise awareness of birth injures and people with stomas.

The 43-year-old had to have a colostomy after suffering a fourth-degree tear during the birth of her son in 2011.

Mrs Castle, of Alnwick, Northumberland, said she took on the swim to "prove you can do anything with a stoma".

She trained for three years before attempting the swim and had to wait for the right conditions before setting off on the more than 20-mile (32km) challenge.

Gill Castle says she took on the swim to "prove you can do anything with a stoma"

The swimmer left the Kent coast at 21:30 BST on Monday and made the majority of the journey in the dark, arriving near Wissant shortly before 11:30 on Tuesday.

She was passed food and drinks every 45 minutes by the team on her support boat who accompanied her during the challenge, but were not allowed to touch her.

Gill Castle swam from Dover to Calais in 14 hours to raise awareness of stomas and women injured in childbirth

Mrs Castle suffered extensive injuries when her son Sam was born and needed surgery to have a stoma, a hole in her abdomen through which her bowel was diverted to a bag to catch the waste.

She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety and depression and the NHS ultimately settled out of court in 2014 for the damage caused during childbirth and failings in her care.

• The Stoma Swimmer is available now on BBC Sounds

In that same year, Mrs Castle read an article by a triathlete with a stoma and had a "lightbulb moment" when she realised the woman's colostomy was still enabling her to live an active life.

Mrs Castle went on to set up Chameleon Buddies, a charity to support women in the UK and abroad who have had childbirth injuries.

Gill Castle says she wants people not to be ashamed of their colostomy bags

Among her various challenges, she started taking a dip at her local beach wearing nothing but a bikini every day throughout winter in 2020 to break down stigmas around wearing a stoma bag.

"I really wanted to grab people's attention," she previously told the BBC.

"I got women who got very emotional and just said 'thank you'," she added.

After, Mrs Castle said she was asked by a friend about swimming the English Channel, to which her initial reaction was "absolutely not".

She then changed her mind and took on the challenge "because it would be a fantastic way to raise awareness of women injured in childbirth and that you can do anything with a stoma".

Her training regime included swimming up to 12 hours a week in her local pool and the sea, and one six-hour night swim off the Dover coast.

Her mother, Sally Harrison, said: "If people talk about [having a stoma or suffering birthing injuries], it helps other people in certain circumstances.

"If they can think, 'she's still going on, and I can too', then that's more important to Gill than anything," Ms Harrison told BBC Radio Newcastle.

The Channel swim has raised more than £17,000 for her charity.