Sam takes breath to turn life around
AN ex-royal Marine has turned his life around after battling depression and twice attempting to take his own life.
Sam Murray, from Stockport, served for nine years in The Royal Marines and later worked as a bodyguard in the Middle East where he witnessed traumatic events – including seeing friends killed.
As a result the father-ofthree battled severe depression and was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Six years ago Sam, who turned to drink and drugs to try to control how he was feeling, felt there was no way out and stood on the edge of a platform at Stockport train station ready to take his own life.
Fortunately a bystander dragged him away and he was taken to Stepping Hill Hospital, where he spent two months on a mental health ward receiving counselling and therapy. After being discharged, the demons returned and he says the medication he was taking made him feel worse.
Just two months after leaving hospital Sam made a second attempt to end his life by taking an overdose.
But Sam made an urgent phone call to a military charity called Rock2recovery, who sent an ambulance and he had his stomach pumped in hospital.
Over the next 18 months Sam saw four friends, all exmarines like him, take their own life one by one.
He said: “They were all similar to me, all family men, similar age and happy on the face of it – but they weren’t. So I thought ‘that is enough.’”
Things finally turned around when Sam found cold water therapy – which involves dipping and swimming in outdoor pools and rivers – and breathwork. Sam, who lives in Hulme, now practises and teaches the therapies to other people and groups including police veterans and NHS workers.
Sam met his partner Miranda Bailey, 52, in 2020, and they both teach these stress-relieving skills via their practice, The Breath Connection.
He says: “The thing that gave me life, I am giving it back.”
He ran 50 miles on his 50th birthday - July 17 along the wild terrain of the Cornish coast to raise money for three charities that have helped him - and many others: Rock2recovery, The Pilgrim Bandits and The Garden House.
Sam says: “Without these organisations, I know that I personally wouldn’t be here today, along with many, many others.”
Sam’s Go Fund Me page can be found at https://gofund.me/1a3c9ac2