In March 1977, when Terry Fox was only 18, doctors amputated his right leg above the knee because of bone cancer. Within weeks he was walking on an artificial leg, and the night before his surgery a coach had brought him a story about an amputee who ran the New York Marathon. Terry decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. He started at St. John’s, Newfoundland, on April 12, 1980, and ran an average of 42 kilometers a day, about a marathon every day. After 143 days and 5,373 kilometers, cancer had spread to his lungs, and he had to stop outside Thunder Bay, Ontario. He died in June 1981, a month before his 23rd birthday. The annual Terry Fox Run has since raised more than 800 million dollars.
