THREE friends from Wellington have raised more than £2,000 for a children’s hospital by abseiling 100 feet.

Claire Southcott, Michelle Hawkings and Lar Morgan are friends of Abbie and Staci Patterson-Bright, whose son Cooper weighed only 1lb 4oz when he was born premature.

Cooper received 13 months of hospital care, most of it at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and when it held an Abseil Day at Fort Dunlop in the city, Staci and friends took part.

Abbie said: “They helped the day’s events raise more than £40,000 for the hospital and we wanted to say a massive thank you to them for being so brave for Cooper and to everyone who donated. It’s an amazing achievement for such a great cause.”

Abbie spent the first 35 years of her life in Wellington before moving to Worcestershire with her American wife in 2014.

Now she and Staci, who have family and friends in Wellington and spend as much time visiting as they can, are a year in to 13 months of fundraising for the hospitals Cooper has received care in.

Cooper was born about 16 weeks early in December 2016 and was given only a 15 per cent chance of survival.