Thaindian News

Sep 20 (THAINDIAN NEWS) After spending two years in preparation, a forty-two year old French man has managed to not only swim the English Channel, but to arrive a full 10 hours ahead of schedule. It is a feat which would be amazing for anyone, but is made even more incredible by the fact that former metal worker Philippe Croizon lost both his arms and legs in an accident in 1994.

Croizon has become the first man with no arms or legs to ever cross the English Channel, using specially designed prosthetic flippers. He left from Folkestone, Kent at 8 am Saturday, and arrived in Wissant, which is near Calais, right before 9:30 am, 10 hours earlier than he was expected.

He swam at around three kilometers, or two miles an hour, and had dolphins swimming alongside him for most of the trip. Most athletes swim at around four or five kilometers. Crozoin landed on a rock at the end of his journey and was taken aboard a boat which was on it’s way to Britain.

Croizon lost his limbs in an accident in 1994 in which he was trying to remove an television antennae from the roof of a house. A 20,000 volt arc of current surged through him from a power-line close by, and doctors had no choice but to amputate his badly damaged arms and legs.

While laying in the hospital, he watched a television documentary about someone who swam the English Channel, and he decided that this was to be his new gaol. He is a father of two who stated that he wanted to accomplish this “for myself, my family and all my fellows in misfortune who have lost their taste for life.”