Shropshire nurse Melissa completes epic relay across English Channel

14 June 2018

They endured seasickness, hypothermia and fatigue and even swam in the dark – yet Shropshire nurse Melissa Compton and her relay team have completed their incredible swim across the English Channel.

Melissa, who works in ITU at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH), kicked off the 22-mile relay in Dover, swimming five times before landing the team in Calais, France, nearly 17 hours later.

The team – which also included Keith Clarke, Emma Heggenbarth, Janet Mills, and reserve Karin Daelemans – are known as the Faffing Frosties. They each swam for an hour in succession to complete their epic challenge to raise funds for SaTH Charity – the charity run by The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH).

Melissa, who lives near Shrewsbury, said: “We travelled down to Kent and had a lazy day sitting around waiting for the phone call that would say if we could swim or not. All day, and for the previous three days, the channel had been full of thick fog with visibility down to 50 metres at times, so it was unlikely that we would swim.

“However, at 9pm we received a phone call to  say the fog had cleared and the French coast could be seen – so the swim was on! We met the boat at 12.30am at Dover marina which had a crew on board, including the Channel Swimming Association observer whose job was to make sure that we followed the rules.

“We loaded the boat and set off to Samphire Hoe. It was dark and the sea was choppy, and sea sickness started to set in for a couple members of the team, including myself, even though we had taken sea sickness tablets.

“I started the swim at 1.30am – the water temperature was 13.4C – and all of us did our first swim in the pitch darkness. Emma then had a sun rise swim which was magical. I landed the team in France on my fifth swim. I was tired after being pulled about by the tide, but 16hrs 56mins after setting off from an English beach, I walked out of the sea and on to a beach at Cap Blanc in France.

“The team had managed it, even though members suffered from seasickness, hypothermia and fatigue. It wasn’t easy but it was a fantastic achievement and a great experience for all of us!”

The team are raising funds for SaTH Charity, as well as The Association of Glycogen Storage Disease. They are hoping to raise enough money to enable SaTH Charity to buy a bladder scanner for ITU.

You can still sponsor the team here: https://www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/sath/faffingfrosties

They completed their challenge on 3 June.