Terry Fox’s nurse, guest at a Surrey run, had to tell the world about his death in 1981

Terry Fox’s nurse, guest at a Surrey run, had to tell the world about his death in 1981

Published 10:28 am Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Organizers of a Terry Fox Run in Surrey welcomed special guest Alison Ince on Sunday morning, Sept. 20.

Ince, one of Fox’s nurses at Royal Columbian Hospital during his final days, was at the Fraser Heights Village site of the annual charity run hosted by Terry Fox Foundation.

Ince became media liaison for Fox at the hospital in New Westminster, where he died in June 1981.

She remembers having to tell waiting media representatives that the Marathon of Hope hero had lost his battle with cancer.

Earlier, when hospital staff learned Fox was coming back to Royal Columbian after stopping his run at Thunder Bay, Ince said “a very rude word, and burst into tears,” she recalled in a 2011 interview.

Ince learned first-hand just how much Canada and the world had taken Fox into their hearts. They had to set up special phone lines at the hospital and hire operators for them to keep the emergency lines open, because so many people were calling for updates on his condition. “It felt like we were shepherding the whole country through it,” Ince recalled.

Long retired from nursing, the 91-year-old now lives near Harold Bishop Elementary, where a young Terry Fox once went to school in Surrey for a short time, before the family moved to Port Coquitlam.

Ince has spoken many times on behalf of the Cancer Society in Barbados and Terry Fox Foundation in Canada since being inspired by her young patient.

Fifteen years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and lived through that to continue attending Terry Fox Runs, many in Fraser Heights.

“Terry realized how many people were affected by cancer when he went to the Cancer Agency in Vancouver for chemotherapy after having his leg amputated,” Ince recalled. “It was seeing how many people it affected. When he saw other kids having to have this treatment, it hardened his resolve. He said, ‘We have to do something about this.’”

The “something” became Terry’s Marathon of Hope, in which he set out to run a marathon every day until he’d crossed all of Canada, raising both awareness of cancer and money for research. Tragically, his cancer returned and the journey he’d begun in Atlantic Canada ended near Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1980.

“At that point a lot of people weren’t even talking about cancer,” Ince said. “Terry opened a lot of doors in that area. Even the amputation — something like that was always covered in the past, and then there he was out there running in a pair of shorts.”

Four sites in Surrey and two in Delta hosted a Terry Fox Run on Sept. 20. The annual fundraiser aims to advance cancer research while honouring Fox’s iconic Marathon of Hope, stalled in September 1980 but symbolically continued by close to four million Canadians in 600 communities this year.