MedicAlert is a Registered Trademark and Service Mark. © 2009 All Rights Reserved.
Robbie Burrough
Kapuskasing, ON
What a difference two years with MedicAlert® has made!
Two years ago when we first profiled Robbie Burrough, he had just received his first MedicAlert® bracelet and already it was increasing his confidence. Since then, Robbie has embraced life in every way. Not only has he gained a new level of independence, he’s actually become a carded athlete with the Alpine Ontario junior ski team!
Robbie has asthma so severe that his bracelet reads, “severe asthma – immediate hospitalization.” When he has an attack, Robbie has no more than seven minutes to get treatment or he could die. Understandably, Robbie never takes off his MedicAlert® bracelet.
Yet these days he trains with the ski team eight hours a day, four times a week, and zooms down hills in slalom races at speeds up to 95 miles per hour. In fact, he is ranked 15th in the province and 63rd nationally – quite an accomplishment for someone who used to have life-threatening attacks about nine times a year. Sometimes he can barely breathe as he goes down the hill – but it’s the speed, not the asthma. Still, his doctor says, “You shouldn’t be able to do what you’re doing.” MedicAlert has helped him conquer his fears.
He’ll be training in other countries in the future – and his bracelet will protect him everywhere he goes. “We’ve seen a huge difference in him,” says Robbie’s mother, Luanne Burrough. “MedicAlert made him feel special and much safer. He feels the bracelet will help save his life one day.”
Around the same time Robbie got his MedicAlert® membership, he went to see an asthma specialist who prescribed appropriate treatment for him. As a result, his attacks have decreased from nine to about two a year. Now while Robbie is training, he boards with another family who also has an asthmatic daughter. He has convinced her to get a bracelet too. In all his travels Robbie is a great ambassador for MedicAlert!
“We are donors, we give what we can afford, because we believe in MedicAlert,” Luanne says. “When Robbie has an attack he loses all ability to speak because he has no air. The bracelet is Robbie’s voice when he can’t communicate.”
MedicAlert has been indispensable for Robbie both on the slopes and at school. “When I get supply teachers who just don’t understand what's wrong, I show them the bracelet and they call 911. Big explanations are impossible when I can’t breathe.”
We are proud that MedicAlert has helped Robbie become a confident athlete. You can understand why he says, “Anything is possible.”
