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2019 Alumna Merita Kimberley
SHE’S UNSTOPPABLE!
Do something that terrifies you – that’s the message Dio Old Girl Kimberley Chambers (1992) delivered to a Full School Assembly held in her honour on 9 May at the Dawn Jones Sports Centre.
Kim travelled from her home in San Francisco to be presented with the Diocesan 2019 Alumna Merita award for her incredible achievements as an open-water swimmer, philanthropist and conservationist.
Facing fears is certainly something Kim has put into action in her life. Following a terrible accident in 2007, she almost had to have her leg amputated. After being warned she would never walk again, Kim embarked on two years of physical therapy and took up swimming to regain her strength.
This led to a series of deep-water swim challenges around the world. Today Kim is recognised as one of the world’s top marathon ocean-water swimmers. She holds four world records and is among just 15 people – and the only New Zealander – to complete the Oceans Seven Challenge of the planet’s most difficult stretches of water. During these events, wearing nothing but a swimsuit, cap and goggles, Kim has encountered poisonous jellyfish, sharks, strong currents and frigid waters.
In 2015, Kim became the first woman to swim from the Farallon Islands to the Golden Gate Bridge – a distance of 30 miles through the most sharkinhabited stretch of water in the world. The 2017 documentary Kim Swims follows her endeavour.
Less than a month later, she and five teammates from Night Train Swimmers broke the world record for the longest continuous swim in history. Over five days and nights for 91 hours, they swam 500km non-stop. In 2016, the same team swam across the Dead Sea from Jordan to Israel, and in 2017 they swam from the USA to Mexico. Earlier this year, Kim was officially inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. She is the first New Zealand woman to achieve this honour.
Born in Te Kuiti, Kim attended Dio from 1988 to 1992, moving to San Francisco when she was 17. She says, “Without a doubt, the nurturing environment fostered here at Dio made me the woman I am today, and for that I am very grateful.”
Since leaving Dio, Kim has continued to live the Ut Serviamus motto. She’s raised more than $1.7 million for charities supporting veteran causes such as PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in honour of her grandfather who fought in both the Africa and Italy campaigns of WWII, and also for the Semper Fi Fund and the Colibri Centre for Human Rights. Kim also helps raise awareness for the pollution watchdog the San Francisco Baykeeper. She now works full-time as a public speaker and is writing her first book.
Kim kindly took some time out to tell us more about her life-changing accident and the swimming challenges she’s undertaken.
Tell us about your accident I was late for work and I slipped down my staircase, hitting my leg and head. My leg began to swell and I eventually passed out from the pain. My next memory is waking up post-surgery in a San Francisco hospital. I’ll never forget the fear as the surgeons told me they’d saved my leg but didn’t know how much functionality I’d have. I was completely broken, both physically and mentally, but I was determined to prove all the medical experts wrong.
I endured multiple surgeries, and spent two years in full-time physical therapy learning to walk again. I owe so much
of my recovery to the incredible team of therapists who gradually transitioned me from a wheelchair to crutches and then to a leg brace. But after two years I still walked with a limp and I certainly couldn’t run. I just wanted to move; I craved a sense of physical and mental freedom that instinctually led me to a local pool. The water saved me.
How has this experience changed your outlook on life? I had moments when I felt angry, depressed and overwhelmingly despondent. Events like that can be consuming. But I now know that there’s always a gift on the other side of trauma. If you let yourself surrender to what you can’t change or control, and you work hard at what you can change, you’ll emerge transformed and forever grateful. My heart is full because of all of this – the good and the bad – and, given the choice, I wouldn’t change a thing. Those two years gave me a precious glimpse into the realm of personal possibilities; anything is possible when you set your mind, body and heart to a goal. But I didn’t achieve this medical miracle alone. As with my swims, it was a team effort all the way. That’s the secret to beating the odds.
What’s been your most challenging swim to date? Hands-down, the 13 hour and 6-minute swim across the North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland that I did on 2 September 2014. I was stung by hundreds of Lion’s Mane jellyfish and had to put up with the frigid 12-degree water.
I’ve learned that the human body is an amazing machine. I gained 20kg for this particular swim and it saved my life. My training regimen included bulking up, swimming in the San Francisco Bay regularly, and sitting in pools of ice water for hours at a time (no warm showers for six months prior).
When I finally completed the North Channel swim, I was hypothermic and vomiting uncontrollably due to the toxicity from all those jellyfish stings. I was admitted to a specialised respiratory ward in Northern Ireland and then flown back to the US where I was put in a cardiac ward at a San Francisco hospital. I nearly died. It really brought a sense of perspective to everything I do.
How do you remain calm during your swims, especially in waters inhabited by sharks? Many of the stretches of water I’ve swum are populated by different species of shark. These apex-predators serve an important role in maintaining a balanced marine ecosystem; the ocean is their living room, not mine. I’m merely a guest passing through and that’s the mantra I’ve clung to in my countless moments of self-doubt and fear.
For me, the hardest part of any swim is believing in myself and my body’s ability to keep up with the goals and expectations of my mind. The training and the hard work is the easy part.
What’s your proudest accomplishment? This year I was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. As the first and only New Zealand woman to be honoured by this organisation I appreciate the opportunity to show young girls that we’re all capable of far more than we think we are. Marathon open-water swimming and mountaineering are the only two international sports where men and women ‘compete’ on an even playing field.
