5 Jul 2012

Rosanna Ogden - Blackpool Gazette 3rd July 2012


Water baby

Water baby Rosanna Ogden in the pool
Water baby Rosanna Ogden in the pool

A LANCASHIRE heart patient, who could swim before she walked, visited Blackpool to urge people to support the British Heart Foundation.
Rosanna Ogden, from Chorley, has become the face of the charity’s Little Hearts campaign, which urges people to wear a little heart badge to help fund vital research to help other children like Rosanna in future.
The two-year-old – who was born with an extremely rare and serious heart tumour and had to undergo crucial life-saving surgery in the first couple of weeks of her life – came to Blackpool North Station with her family and volunteers from the British Heart Foundation to ask local people for their support.
Rosanna has already taken part in a sponsored swim to raise money for the BHF, swimming 100m unaided – an impressive feat at her age, aside from her difficult start in life.
The tot first started swimming because her parents had been encouraged to involve her in cardiovascular exercise by medics to help aid her recovery.
Very soon she was swimming twice a day unaided, and she has become quite a little mermaid. She took up swimming with baby-swimming course specialists Water Babies at the age of 10 weeks old, and quickly improved so much that she could swim before she could walk.
Proud mum Rosanna said: “We hope Rosanna’s story can give reassurance someone as young as Rosanna who had a very rare kind of heart problem survived. We longed for somebody there to tell us these things, so we could have had more hope.
“We feel supporting the BHF is a positive way to make an impact, and it makes us happy. I would 100 per cent recommend it to everybody, and whenever I can, I do.
“The BHF urgently needs vital funds to continue its ground-breaking research into every form of heart disease affecting men, women, babies and children.”
Anyone who would like to donate can log on to www.justgiving.com/RosannaOgden or to support the Little Hearts campaign, visit your local BHF shop.

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