Fergus Farrell will step onto the Brooklyn Bridge next Saturday and start walking, and he won't stop until he reaches the Santa Monica Pier nearly 3,000 miles later. The Irishman was once given just a 5 percent chance of walking again after a 2018 spinal cord injury left him wheelchair-bound for nearly a year. Now he's preparing to cover roughly 37.5 miles a day, on foot, across eleven states.
Farrell, who lives in Galway, Ireland, is set to begin the walk on Aug. 22, 2026, according to the Brooklyn Paper. The trek, dubbed Fergus Walks, is designed to raise awareness of spinal injuries and money for two charities: Spinal Injuries Ireland and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. Per the same report, he would be the first person with a spinal cord injury to walk across America.
The scale of the undertaking is staggering on its own terms. Farrell's route covers roughly 4,500 kilometers through 11 states from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Santa Monica Pier over 75 consecutive days between August and November, according to Farrell's own account of the journey, requiring an average of about 63 kilometers, or 80,000 steps, each day. He plans to walk about six kilometers per hour for 10 to 12 hours daily, passing through Columbus, Ohio, St. Louis, the Colorado Rockies and Monument Valley at the Utah-Arizona border before finishing on the California coast.
From Motor Coach Yard to Wheelchair to Ultramarathons
Farrell suffered his spinal injury on Oct. 26, 2018, in Ireland, while operating a motor coach company with 35 buses. The Brooklyn Paper reports he underwent an operation that same day and was later released from the National Rehabilitation Hospital in 2019 after being wheelchair-bound for nearly a year. Per the Galway Advertiser, the accident occurred in his motor coach yard in Gort, County Galway, when a heavy lift ruptured three vertebrae and severely damaged his spinal cord.
He took his first walk seven months after the injury and gradually regained movement in his toes. Exactly one year after the accident, he marked his discharge from the rehabilitation hospital by walking 206 kilometers from Galway to Dublin over five days, according to Farrell's own site. He has since walked more than 3,000 kilometers over 18 months of training for the American crossing, walked 251 kilometers across Ireland, completed Ireland's Four-Peak Challenge, and run four ultramarathons.
Farrell also co-wrote a book, titled Rebuilding a Man, detailing his rehabilitation and his outlook on adversity, according to the Galway Advertiser. He now works as a keynote speaker on health, safety, resilience and motivation. The Brooklyn Paper reports that Farrell said his experience of disability gives him a better outlook on life, and that he feels privileged to be able to walk at all.
A Near-Fatal Atlantic Row Preceded This Trek
This is not Farrell's first extreme test since his injury. In 2022, he attempted to row across the Atlantic from Chelsea Piers, but stopped the voyage after breathing difficulties 16 days in, according to the Brooklyn Paper's account. A separate report from the NRH Foundation describes an unsupported attempt to row 5,000 kilometers from New York to Galway that year, in which Farrell was evacuated to a passing bulk carrier 13 days into the voyage due to severe medical distress and low vital signs, leaving teammate Damian Browne to finish the crossing alone. The dossier does not resolve whether these accounts describe the same voyage or two separate attempts, and both versions are presented here as reported.
Family, Sponsors and a Documentary Crew Along the Way
Farrell drove the entire route eight weeks before the Brooklyn Paper's story published, and he will be accompanied on the actual walk by a vehicle traveling ahead of him and plans to stay in hotels along the way. His children — 15-year-old Amy, 13-year-old Bradley and 8-year-old Feilim — plan to see him off in New York before the school year begins, per the Brooklyn Paper. Farrell has said the journey is about connecting with people, and the paper notes that people of all abilities are invited to join him at certain stages along the route.
Amelia Gibberoth is documenting the trip, and Heavy Man Films is working on a separate documentary about the journey, according to the same report. Farrell is set to appear on Good Morning America on Aug. 17. The walk is sponsored by Crown, a building envelope company that is also hosting a gala fundraiser, the Crown Dinner in Support of Fergus Farrell's Walk Across America, at the InterContinental Hotel in Dublin in late November, according to Spinal Injuries Ireland.
Echoes of a 1910 Rivalry
Farrell's route draws direct inspiration from a walk undertaken more than a century earlier. Longford-born Irish immigrant John Ennis, a 67-year-old at the time, walked from Coney Island to San Francisco in 80 days in 1910, according to the Irish Star. Ennis undertook the 4,000-mile journey to disprove American rival Edward Payson Weston's claim that only native-born Americans possessed the stamina for transcontinental walking. Along the way, Ennis filled a glass bottle with seawater at Coney Island and carried it across the country to pour into the Pacific Ocean at San Francisco's Cliff House.
Why the Cause Resonates on Both Sides of the Atlantic
The charities behind Farrell's walk underscore why the cause carries weight in both countries. Spinal Injuries Ireland is Ireland's only dedicated support organization for more than 2,700 people living with spinal cord injuries and their estimated 20,000 family members, according to the organization. In the United States, research from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation indicates that roughly 1 in 50 people — nearly 6 million individuals — live with paralysis, with spinal cord injuries among the leading causes.
