THE brother of a young woman who died hours after being diagnosed with a brain tumour has set himself a gruelling charity challenge to raise £10,000 for the intensive care unit where she was treated.

Claire Gardiner died in January at the age of 30 after she deteriorated suddenly following weeks of headaches.

The Northern Echo: LOVING AND CARING: Claire Gardiner

A registered organ donor, Miss Gardiner, of Heighington, near Darlington, helped save the lives of three people in their 20s and a man in his 60s through transplants following her death.

Now Miss Gardiner’s brother, Edd, 28, has pledged to honour his sister’s memory by taking on three endurance events to buy specialist equipment for the ICU at James Cook Hospital, in Middlesbrough.

Mr Gardiner said his sister’s death was like being “hit by a sledgehammer” and that the event, dubbed the 'Madathlon', is helping to focus his mind on bringing some positives from her death.

Over three consecutive weekends in June, Mr Gardiner will tackle the National Three Peaks Hike over Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon; the Coast to Coast cycle ride, between Whitehaven and Newcastle; and the Great North Swim, a one mile open water swim in Lake Windermere.

He will be joined by three friends - Rob Shields, Dan Long and Helen Richardson – as well as other supporters who will tackle one or two of the elements.

The team are training up to three nights a week, in particular for the open water swimming, which they have little experience of.

Mr Gardiner, who works in the petro-chemical industry, described his sister as "loving and caring”.

He said: “It’s hard to try to get your head around – Claire had headaches for a couple of weeks and the doctors told her it was migraines. Obviously, they wouldn’t instantly say it must be a brain tumour.

“Claire worked for the NHS supply chain, so we thought she must have picked up a bug, but she was rushed into hospital early one morning after she went blind in one eye and they diagnosed the tumour.

“That’s like being hit by a sledgehammer anyway. We stayed at the hospital with her all day and then, less than 24 hours later, they told us she was gone.

“I still don’t think it’s sunk in really. The planning of this event has really given me something to focus on.

“It’s about trying to bring something positive out of what has happened. It’s for the future, to help people with the piece of kit we want to buy – hopefully it will save lives.”

The team aims to buy a £10,000 cooling machine, used to treat people with serious head injuries by bringing their body temperature down. It was identified by consultants at James Cook as a key piece of life-saving equipment.

To sponsor Mr Gardiner and his team search for Madathlon on Facebook and look for the Paypal link.