How unique tandem tricycle is helping Black Country boy with rare condition
A Black Country boy has enjoyed a new lease on life after being given a special tricycle by a city charity.
James Padfield from Wolverhampton has been enjoying rides out around his home in Finchfield with his parents David and Sarah and his brother Samuel after the family was gifted a tandem tricycle by Power Pleas.
The tandem tricycle is the combination of construction work done by charity Grid4Good and a £3,000 donation by the Eveson Charitable Trust to fund the project and help James continue to exercise as he battles a rare health condition.
James was diagnosed with 5Q14.3 Deletion Syndrome, a rare genetic condition in which a piece is missing from one of the body's 46 chromosomes, when he was just one-year-old in 2012.
This meant James would suffer from severe learning delay, Hypertonia and limited communication, with his parents being told he would probably never walk and would spend his life either on his back or in a wheelchair.
At the age of three, James's physiotherapist recommended he should be given a bicycle to help provide the exercise he needed to assist with his treatment.
Needing help, David and Sarah reached out to Power Pleas, a charity which provides outdoor electrically-powered wheelchairs and other aids for children with mobility disorders, with chairman Keith Berry describing the help the charity gave.
He said: "We provided the family with a suitable machine in the form of a tricycle.
"With the help of his physiotherapist and a lot of hard work from all involved, including a sometimes disgruntled James, we managed to build up his core strength enough to get him to start crawling, then slowly starting to walk."
James's father David said the charity had helped to provide a second tricycle two years later.
He said: "James is getting quite a bit stronger and was in need of a new bike, so we investigated a few options and how we could get him onto a bike, with a tandem becoming the best option.
"Any tandem would have to be a tricycle because of his balance issues, so we researched it and found a couple of companies which could make them, but they were prohibitively expensive.
"We approached Keith to see if he knew anyone who could help us, but we didn't expect him to help us himself."
After the funding was approved, Grid4Good sourced a donor tricycle and constructed the tandem tricycle which, after being delayed due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, was completed and presented to the Padfield's on June 2.
Mr Padfield said it had given James a new lease on life, with the nine-year-old enjoying regular rides with his family and racing his brother and spoke of the support the family had received.
He said: "It's really amazing and they've done so much for us, both in the past and now, so we will always give back and help them wherever we can.
"The tandem is amazing and is great for his physical fitness, as well as his mental wellbeing, and it's meant we can go out further as a family to places we've never been to before, so it's really broadened our horizons."
