Michael Clarke recalls the moment he rushed his daughter to hospital

It is not rare to see sporting icons taking up a particular cause to fight against because they themselves have had some unhappy experience. One such icon is former Australia captain Michael Clarke. The 38-year-old has engaged himself in a mission to make people aware about asthma.

He has taken it up because of his personal experience of seeing his daughter suffering from the ailment. Clarke’s daughter Kelsey-Lee had an asthma attack when she was just three and ever since then, the ex-cricketer became serious about it and even invested in a firm that makes tools to identify asthma.

Clarke recently said that he had always harbored an interest in the business. He started focusing on different types of business towards the end of his cricketing career. It was then when he witnessed his little daughter suffering an asthma attack and from then on, he started growing interest in the disease and then after coming across a device that helps in curing it, he invested in a start-up to help more people suffering from asthma.

Clarke was recently at the Med Parliament in India where he shared his journey and insights in healthcare entrepreneurship and the reason which pushed him to work on asthma awareness.

“I was always interested in doing business. In the last 4-5 years of my career, when I was Australia captain, I had started to focus on different types of business. One day, my three-year-old daughter had an asthma attack and she started having breathing problems. At that point of time, I didn’t know she was suffering from asthma as nor me neither my wife had asthma,” 9News cited quoted the World Cup-winning captain as saying.

‘Was anxious to see the condition of my daughter’

“I became anxious seeing the condition of my daughter. I then took her in my car and went to the hospital and there we found out she had asthma. I did not know much about this disease. But, I wanted to help my daughter.”

“On one day, I met Vaani who was part of a start-up firm named Respiri. She came up with a device named Wheezo, which is effective in cure of asthma,” he added. “Once I got to know more about it, I was impressed by it and that’s why I invested in the start-up. The medical sector was not something which I had thought about investing but because of my daughter’s condition, I was attracted towards this sector and I wanted to help more and more people.”

Clarke also said that nearly 460 people die every year in Australia because of asthma. The former batsman led Australia to their fifth World Cup win in 2015 at home to equal the feats of Allan Border, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting (twice).