Last Friday morning, Jill Yoneda set out to tackle a huge challenge. She was going to swim, non-stop, from Victoria to Vancouver to help raise money for Canuck Place Children’s Hospice.
The plan was to arrive at a Vancouver beach on Sunday, however, she wasn’t able to complete the task at hand.
After 15 hours in the water, the 49-year-old had to stop due to “health complications.”
“Yoneda and her volunteer crew were greeted at Jericho Beach on August 10 by fans and staff and volunteers from Canuck Place, celebrating her incredible 40km feat,” says Canuck Place, which adds the original distance would have been 109 kilometres.
Yoneda has had nearly two dozen surgeries in her life amid ongoing medical concerns.
“After my last swim that I did from Nanaimo to Sechelt, and then tried to get back to Sechelt in 26 hours, I had a couple of ribs become disconnected from my sternum. It’s called slipping rib syndrome, so after that swim, I had two ribs removed on my right side, and subsequently, two other ribs wired together,” she told 1130 NewsRadio.
Yoneda’s motivation was to help raise money for a good cause and in honour and memory of her cousin Joshua Yoneda, a UBC medical school student, who died at the age of 27 from a rare form of cancer two years ago.
Despite not being in the water, Yoneda’s fundraising efforts continue, having raised more than $70,000 for the hospice.
Funds from the swim are also being matched by the Vancouver Canucks.
Canuck Place is B.C.’s only palliative care provider for children and it relies heavily on donations for help, with only 30 per cent of funding coming from the government.