Terry Fox legacy remains as Friday marks the day that he died in 1981
Posted June 28, 2013 6:29 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It was on this day in 1981 when Terry Fox died of cancer in New Westminister, B.C., a month before his 23 birthday.
Fox lost a leg to cancer before embarking on his “Marathon of Hope” run across Canada.
He made it halfway, to Thunder Bay, before cancer struck again.
Fox raised nearly $25 million to fight cancer and won the admiration of millions.
Today thousands of people take part in annual cancer fundraising runs across the country, and around the world, in Terry’s memory.
Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Port Coquitlam B.C, where he would grow up to become an active teenager involved in many sports.
Fox was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.
Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at the age 22.
The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning.
To date, over $600 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry’s name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world.
With files from terryfox.org
