Meet Terry Fox: He lost his leg to cancer, then ran 5,373 km across Canada

The most striking detail in Terry Fox’s story is the image of a 21-year-old standing at the edge of the Atlantic, dipping his artificial right leg into the water before beginning to run across Canada. On April 12, 1980, that was how Fox started his Marathon of Hope, a journey that would eventually cover 5,373 kilometres in 143 days.Three years earlier, Fox had been an ordinary teenager with a growing interest in sports. Then, in March 1977, at just 18, he discovered he had osteogenic sarcoma, a form of bone cancer, in his right leg. Doctors amputated the leg 15 centimetres above the knee. He subsequently underwent 16 months of treatment.The operation changed his body, but something he saw during treatment changed his purpose.Fox had spent time around other young cancer patients and was struck by the suffering he witnessed.