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Stephen Hawking, MND sufferer, does ice bucket challenge with a twist

The eminent professor suffered a bout of pneumonia last year, so couldn't have the water poured on him

Natasha Culzac
Friday 29 August 2014 10:06 BST
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Stephen Hawking has done the ice bucket challenge
Stephen Hawking has done the ice bucket challenge

So far, the ice bucket challenge has raised over £3million for the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA), and now Stephen Hawking, a well-known sufferer, has completed the dare – with a twist.

The prominent physicist, who had a bout of pneumonia last year, said "it would not be wise for me to have a bucket of cold water pour over me… but my children Robert, Lucy and Tim gallantly volunteered to take the challenge for me."

He then urged everyone to donate to the MNDA to "eliminate this terrible disease".

In the family’s driveway, his offspring took on the challenge before Hawking, 72, nominated the Director of the Science Musem, Ian Blatchford and the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University - Lord Sainsbury and Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz.

MNDA is the British equivalent of the ALS Association in the US, which has so far received $95million in donations since the viral and organic ice bucket challenge took off at the end of the last month.

Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21 and had been given just two years to live.

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