Official Press Release

Mark was injured in a fall over the weekend. What follows is the official release with details of his current status. We will update this as appropriate. Thanks for all the messages of support so far.

Well-known Irish adventurer Mark Pollock is in a stable but serious condition in the Royal Berkshire Hospital this evening after a fall from an upper floor window.

The Belfast-born explorer fell 25 feet from a bedroom window in a house where he was staying in Henley on Friday night.

Pollock, 34, is in intensive care, having sustained multiple broken bones and internal injuries in the fall.

Pollock won silver and bronze medals in rowing at the Commonwealth Games in 2002, and was attending the Henley Royal Regatta as a spectator. He had returned home early from Leander Club at 10.30pm and went to bed.

Some time after that, Pollock fell 25 feet into the front garden, where friends immediately came to his aid.

Pollock’s fiancée Simone George credits his friends’ quick reactions with saving his life.

“We want to say thank you to his friends for saving his life. We cannot express what we feel for them. Mark is focusing on getting better. He would like to thank everyone for their love and their prayers and their thoughts.”

Pollock was still recovering from having completed the Round Ireland Yacht Race, becoming the first blind man to co-skipper a boat in the race. He sailed the race with Air Corps Captain Mick Liddy, and the pair suffered severe electrical failure in the race, disabling their autohelm which meant they were unable to sleep for nearly four days in a row.

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For the last decade, Mark Pollock has been racing in the world’s harshest environments. He has survived the sub-zero temperatures of Antarctica as he raced to the South Pole over 43 days.

He suff ered the scorching heat of the Gobi Desert, completing six marathons in one week in “The Race of No Return”. He has competed in races on the frozen Arctic Ocean at the North Pole, through the desert lowlands of the Syrian African Rift Valley to the Dead Sea and at altitude in the Himalayas.”

Mark has competed against professional explorers like Sir RanulphFiennes, Olympic gold medalists and special forces personnel.

Mark lost his sight when his retina detached aged just 22, at that stage a promising business and economics student at Trinity College and an international rower. Once over the shock of blindness, Mark was challenged to redefifi ne his life framed by his new circumstances. He moved back to Dublin and resumed post-graduate study and rowing, winning two Commonwealth Games medals.

He now makes his living as a professional adventure athlete and as a public and motivational speaker.

If more detail is required, please contact Markham Nolan on +353 86 2570 320