Hancock climb a go for Gold in honor of son’s life, death

Former Chicago attorney I. Randall Gold, now an assistant U.S. attorney in sunny Orlando, Fla., will be back in the cold and “Windy City” on Sunday, Feb. 22.

It’s for his health, in a way, and for the health of thousands of people who have suffered from maladies that affect their ability to breathe. One was his son, Eric Matthew Gold, who had pulmonary fibrosis and received a double lung transplant in 2004.

Randy Gold plans to participate for the second time in the annual “Hustle Up the Hancock,” a laborious 94-story climb up the stairways in the John Hancock Center.

Eric made the climb three times after his lung transplant and had planned to try again last February, but he died Jan. 20, 2008, of cancer and pneumonia. Only 26, he was a second-year law student at the University of Florida.

Also a diabetic since childhood, Eric had been a lifeguard, counselor and program director for the Florida Camp for Children and Youth with Diabetes, and he helped develop a Pee Wee Camp for youngsters.

Eric earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in speech pathology at Northwestern University and had worked with brain-injured patients at Shands Rehab Hospital in Gainesville before entering law school.

Randy Gold is a Northwestern graduate, too, who was a lawyer in Chicago from 1976 to 1978 after graduating from the University of Illinois College of Law. He is still registered to practice in Illinois.

Randy did the “Hustle Up the Hancock” last year in his son’s place, and will repeat the climb Feb. 22, along with some 4,000 participants. He started training during the summer of 2007 by walking up 11 flights of stairs each day to Eric’s hospital room.

The annual event is sponsored by the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago to raise funds for lung disease research, advocacy and education. For more information, call (312) 243-2000, ext. 200, or hustle@lungchicago.org.