The woman who saved 25 lives
Eight years ago, for her 50th birthday, Galy O’Connor’s celebration was characteristically caring. The enthusiastic mountain climber and personal trainer taught a fundraising fitness class at her local gym, where she asked participants to donate to the 2011 Queensland floods appeal instead of buying her a gift. At heart, she was still the same girl who’d asked her mum if she could bring homeless people to live with them so they didn’t shiver in lonely streets.
“We were having an absolute ball,” says Galy of the class. “Then, as I was jumping up and down, calling out instructions, I felt it.” That ‘it’ – a small lump in her toned stomach – was about to transform her life, and eventually the lives of 25 complete strangers.
The personal becomes political
That lump had been caused years earlier – before Galy had married or had children; even before she’d climbed her first mountain, at age 18, to impress a “good-looking guy” in Kenya. She’d climbed mountains yearly thereafter, and was in training to climb Mount Everest at the time of that 50th birthday fitness class. But long before she’d even imagined herself on a mountain top, Galy’s first job, aged 13, had been cleaning the asbestos-riddled factory where her dad worked. Now, 37 years later, she faced an asbestos-related cancer diagnosis.
Initially, Galy
