NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (WTNH) — An emergency room doctor at the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain just returned to Connecticut after running seven marathons in seven days on seven continents — including Antarctica.

Dr. Lisa Bienia Kenton just finished running 183.4 miles in seven days to raise money for her niece and nephew who have a chromosomal disorder. Covering that much ground in just a week doesn’t allow for much time to sleep.

“We average about three hours a night,” Dr. Bienia Kenton said. “So, 21 hours we slept total for the seven days.”

It’s called the Great World Race. 60 runners started in Antarctica, then South Africa, then Australia, then the United Arab Emirates, then Portugal, then Colombia and finished in Miami.

“In Antarctica, it was -30°C with a 30 mile an hour wind chill,” Dr. Bienia Kenton said. “So that was by far the most grueling and kind of gnarly things we experienced. Like, sometimes you don’t even know if you’re moving forward.”

Dr. Bienia Kenton is part of an elite group of female runners — only 166 have run a marathon on every continent and only a fraction of them have done it in seven days.

“I met a lot of great, strong women,” Dr. Bienia Kenton said. “A lot of moms, same demographic as me, and we kind of just powered each other through.”

She had support from her husband and sons, who encouraged her to do the race. She trained by running to her son’s baseball games and around the field before returning home. She said her husband got her time off work to run the race after talking to her boss, who met her in Miami and ran the last marathon with her.

She said the experience of running the Great World Race left her body bruised, but it changed her life.

“I left there with this life, inner self or inner feeling of confidence, like I can tackle the world,” she said. “And maybe that’s going to wear off over time, but right now I’m riding that high.”

STAMFORD, CONN. – A growing pile of garbage near the Stamford train station in Connecticut is raising concerns among commuters and local authorities.

What we know:

Metro North riders have noticed the unsightly accumulation of trash, including mattresses, couches and clothing, just north of the station.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) told FOX 5 NY‘s Richard Giacovas that it is aware of the situation, suggesting it reflects someone’s living conditions rather than illegal dumping.

Efforts to address the issue

According to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, state law imposes a $219 fine for dumping items larger than one cubic foot. 

Additionally, vehicles used for dumping can be confiscated, and offenders may face arrest. The state can also sue for cleanup costs, with fines reaching up to $25,000 a day.

The city of Stamford’s highways department actively tackles illegal dumping and offers legal disposal options, such as the Katrina Mygatt Recycling Center and the Scale House, where residents can dispose of up to 200 pounds of material daily for free.

What they’re saying:

A spokesperson for the Connecticut DOT said that local and state agencies are collaborating to relocate individuals found living at the site and to provide essential services.

Plans are underway to outsource the cleanup to a third party, especially if hazardous materials like needles are present, the DOT said. 

As winter fast approaches, in the wake of Connecticut’s most recent housing bill passing into legislation, it is clear that we are ignoring one of our most vulnerable populations: unsheltered homeless individuals.

Housing First is the only approach proven to significantly reduce the number of people living on the streets, and it is actually more cost-effective than leaving people outside.

Research shows that supportive housing dramatically lowers hospitalizations, emergency room use, psychiatric crises, and shelter stays, which creates net savings for taxpayers. It is the humane approach and the financially responsible one.

With the exception of promising a pilot program for portable showers and laundry services, Connecticut’s new housing bill (HB 8002) offers nothing to the 500+ people sleeping outside tonight. These are people who cannot wait for zoning reforms, planning committees, or long-term market shifts.

HB 8002 may reshape how development occurs and create a savings account for middle-class home-buyers, but none of its provisions will bring unsheltered homelessness down and help people trapped in a vicious cycle of trauma. Only Housing First could do that.

I know this not just from policy research, but also from seeing it affect the lives of people I love.

I was grateful to meet a woman in recovery who shared with me her incredible story. She told me about how she once lived unsheltered for over a year. While on the streets, she became a victim of human trafficking, was sexually assaulted by a group of men, and fell deeply into addiction and psychosis, which layered trauma on top of already existing complex post-traumatic stress disorder and schizoaffective disorder.

This wasn’t the result of laziness on her part. She was set up for failure from childhood after being abused by her family, and later faced more abuse in romantic relationships. She bounced around from one unsafe situation to another, without the tools to get help or help herself.