Dozens came out to support Oli Coppock as they walked 33 miles in his aid
A man is “locked in his body” and “all he can do is blink” as his friends and family urgently try and raise as much money for his rehabilitation care as possible. Oli Coppock was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2023 and doctors discovered he had a fourth ventricle brain tumour. After a trip to Ibiza that August he was told the tumour had grown, and Oli had to undergo a very high-risk surgery to have the mass removed.
The 32-year-old from Warrington took a course of intensive radiotherapy in his stride, travelling to The Christie cancer centre in Manchester every day for six weeks for treatment. To mark the completion of this journey, Oli booked himself in for a tattoo – a spartan – which his sister said was to show he was a warrior who could fight anything that came his way.
But on May 11 this year Oli began suffering from headaches, nausea and fatigue, with his sister Saff Coppock, 22, previously telling the ECHO: “He was really worried at this time and was feeling dizzy and unwell. He said ‘I don’t know if it might be nothing,’ but he really wanted to check it out.”
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Initially doctors turned Oli away, but he was admitted to hospital on May 22 after his family begged for medical support. The following day, he was found unresponsive on the ward and suffered a cardiac arrest.
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An MRI showed Oli had hydrocephalus, a condition which occurs where there is too much fluid in the brain and can be fatal if left untreated. During emergency surgery to drain the fluid, Oli went into cardiac arrest on the operating table.
After pulling through this, he had a further three high risk surgeries over the next two weeks. Oli spent six weeks in an Intensive Care Unit, before moving to a high dependency ward. He is now breathes via a tracheostomy and is being fed through a tube.
On Sunday, September 29, around 40 people took part in a 33-mile walk from Manchester to Liverpool, ending the day long trek at Caribou Poutine on Hardman Street in Liverpool city centre. Speaking to the ECHO in the last hour of the walk, Oli’s girlfriend of four years, Beth Wright, 33, said: “The walk for us today was to raise awareness but also to raise funds for Oli.
“We don’t know for a fact whether Oli will be okay, we don’t know what the future holds. in the past we’ve been told he will need to go into a care home, at the moment he has rehabilitation but that could last another three, four, five years or it could last another six months before we need to think about his care.”
A fundraiser has been set up in the name of Oli, with more than £20,000 raised in a month. Beth continued: “He’s not great, he can’t speak, he can’t walk, he can’t talk, he can’t drink, he can’t eat. He’s locked in his body. he can’t do anything he could before, he can only blink.”
When asked about the walk, Beth said: “It was absolutely amazing, we have his whole family, my family, and then we have got his friends and my friends. At one point we have 50 or 60 people here including those who came out to support us. I’m choked up by it all. The number of people who have come up to us and asked us about the walk and then donated £10 or £20 is amazing.” To read more or donate to the GoFundMe, click here.
