Having come close to losing his wife Audrey back in 2015 to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), deadly to countless Covid-19 patients across the world, Australian golfer Marc Leishman can truly relate to the physical, emotional and mental agony caused by an invisible enemy such as the coronavirus. After a harrowing several days in the hospital, Audrey, with the help of her doctors and nurses, pulled through.
“It was the worst time of her life,” said Marc. “It was the worst time in my life too. I didn’t even have it.”
Now the husband-and-wife team is bent on making a difference by helping front-liners who risk their own lives to help patients in the war against Covid-19.
“With our personal experience of me getting sick, we realised how hard these doctors, nurses, the support staff, respiratory therapists, how hard they all work to keep patients alive,” said Audrey. “I wouldn’t be here without them, and so we wanted to support them.”
And with small businesses severely impacted, particularly restaurants having to survive solely on takeouts due to stay-at-home orders and social distancing, the Leishmans were more than determined to help in any way they could.
And so they decided, through the Leishmans’ Begin Again Foundation, to help by buying meals that might allow restaurant owners to pay their staff for a little while longer, then getting the meals delivered to frontline healthcare workers in the emergency departments (ED) and intensive care units (ICUs) of various hospitals, starting with the hospital that saved Audrey’s life, Sentara Princess Anne.
Image Source: Instagram @ Marc Leishman
“It just seemed like a really natural fit,” said Marc, a five-time PGA Tour winner, including the last edition of the CIMB Classic played in 2018 at TPC Kuala Lumpur.
“With what happened to Audrey … we know how, on a normal day, we know how hard the medical staff work. And I mean when something like this is going on and it’s got to be, I don’t want to say tenfold, but more than that, like 100 times harder. They’ve got so much more going on, and a lot of them aren’t getting home to see their family because they might be infected. So, it’s just a huge burden on them.
“And then the restaurants having to be closed for eating, we want to keep them employed. And I know four meals for just us … it’ll make a little difference, but not a huge difference. … I don’t know how many meals they’re buying, but 60 or 80, or whatever it is. If we buy that many, that could make a difference to that restaurant, possibly staying open or not.
Image Source: Instagram @ Marc Leishman
“We’re just trying to help in any way we can,” said the Victoria native, who resides in Virginia Beach with Audrey and their three children, Oliver, Harvey and Eva.
On top of sending meals to a different hospital each week, the Leishmans’ foundation has also placed an order for 1,000 cloth masks to be delivered to grocery stores in the Virginia Beach area to protect the cashiers and store clerks who work there.
“One thing I have seen is that a lot of people offer to help right in the beginning,” said Audrey. “That just comes to happen in any kind of crisis. I still want to be there when it’s getting harder for people to help … especially in a situation like this as time goes on and people are out of work for longer, it may be harder and harder to do so.
“We’d like to keep doing this for as long as we can.”
In partnership with the Patient Advocate Foundation, the Begin Again Foundation – whose origins were inspired by Audrey’s near-death experience – is also giving out 10 US$1,000 grants per month to survivors of ARDS, sepsis or toxic shock syndrome.
Content Source: www.pgatour.com
