{"id":611732,"date":"2026-09-25T21:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T21:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/611732\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T21:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T21:08:10","slug":"muay-thai-brain-injury-survivor-isaac-chan-plans-charity-run-across-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/611732\/","title":{"rendered":"Muay Thai brain injury survivor Isaac Chan plans charity run across New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBut as I said with the injury that I had, it wasn\u2019t until quite a while later that I found out the extent of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Symptoms included dizziness and headaches, but he felt it could have been an ear infection before the pain became so bad he had to admit himself to hospital, where they scanned his brain and discovered the bleeding.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was at home in Tauranga when I found out. I got flown up to Auckland to have neurosurgery, an operation which released all of the blood out from that area.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then from there it was just a slow and quite long and really difficult recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to start from, not quite square one, but I had to start from basics and I couldn\u2019t do things like work and I couldn\u2019t exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chan said despite being a doctor, he found the entire experience isolating, scary and uncertain, with the mental side of recovery one of the toughest challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was at home. I couldn\u2019t do really anything physically for a while. I tried to keep busy with things like reading and just keeping my mind active.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe 25-year-old was airlifted to Auckland from Tauranga for emergency neurosurgery after his brain bleed was discovered. Photo \/ Isaac Chan<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess recovery for me is also where I went to mentally and that was a really quite difficult and dark place.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving what felt like everything taken away and then facing the uncertainty of having a brain injury and what that looks like, that was a huge part of my recovery and I really didn\u2019t know at the time that there\u2019s charities like Brain Injury New Zealand and those sorts of things in place to help people through that sort of part of their recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chan is attempting to run from Bluff to Cape R\u0113inga in January and hopes to raise $100,000 for Brain Injury New Zealand<\/a> while creating awareness around what those with similar injuries might be going through.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really just the uncertainty and the unknown that\u2019s the big thing for me.<\/p>\n

\"AA head kick in his fight knocked him down in the first round, but he wasn’t immediately aware of the damage done to him after the fight. Photo \/ Isaac Chan<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s that\u2019s what I want to help help raise the discourse around and help people that were in my position and that are feeling uncertain and don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, just to have a little bit of hope and know that recovery is not linear and you can you can still go on to do great things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chan said returning to work was a good feeling but running had been a particularly important outlet for him since the brain bleed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat started off being the only way that I could get back into things and physical activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started walking and started jogging and started running. And from that it\u2019s grown into more of a tool that I can use to help do what I want to do and help push myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not fighting Muay Thai anymore after something like that and [running\u2019s] much of the same really. There\u2019s no one out when you\u2019re in the ring, there\u2019s no one out there fighting for you, and similar when you\u2019re out on your runs, there\u2019s no one out there running for you.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think it\u2019s for me it\u2019s a really important tool just to push myself and help myself grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old would slowly increase the distance he was running every time he went out and with his aim of running the length of New Zealand, he hopes to run a marathon a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cStacking up 42km every day, I think would take about 60 days roughly on some rough math, but I think a marathon a day is the target.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chan plans to keep people updated on his progress on his \u201cRun it back NZ\u201d social media pages and show people who suffer brain injuries can still accomplish major achievements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to show myself that I can do something like this and it\u2019s about taking accountability for what\u2019s happened and wanting to make something cool from this experience that I was sort of agonising over for a long time and felt quite bitter and angry about.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then more than what I\u2019m saying, it\u2019s about helping and showing other people what you can do and doing it all in the name of a really good charity.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was also clear he won\u2019t be making a return to the fighting ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always a desire and I\u2019d love to do something like that, but I think protecting myself and after what\u2019s happened I\u2019ve got a different calling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs my coach said, I don\u2019t have to be in the ring fighting anymore, so no more fights.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBut as I said with the injury that I had, it wasn\u2019t until quite a while later that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2840,74,1596,32352,1977,49159,15124,1888,71,15258,123955,128003,89195,112512,14000,117,111,139,69,2171,49478,8145,213,43211,14484,25067,76351,379,80],"class_list":["post-611732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-across","tag-after","tag-brain","tag-chan","tag-charity","tag-determined","tag-fight","tag-first","tag-from","tag-injury","tag-isaac","tag-length","tag-lifesaving","tag-muay","tag-neurosurgery","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-plans","tag-receiving","tag-run","tag-sports","tag-suffering","tag-survivor","tag-thai","tag-traumatic","tag-year","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}