Veteran completes 250-mile charity walk with broken leg

By Tom Bevan

A heroic Royal Marine who "refused to die" after suffering more than 400 separate injuries in an Afghan explosion completed a 250-mile charity walk - with a BROKEN LEG.

Paul Vice, 42, miraculously survived after he suffered more than 100 significant wounds during the blast and 'died' twice as he was airlifted back to Camp Bastion in 2011.

His recovery was the focus of a documentary, "the commando who refused to die" but he has now revealed he completed what he described as his 'hardest mental and physical challenge' yet with a broken limb.

He raised $8k by successfully completing his epic charity challenge walking from his home in Exeter, Devon, to Manchester in aid of FORCE Cancer Charity.

But he has now revealed an X-ray taken after showed he had completed the entire challenge, with a serious injury.

He was scheduled to walk 232 miles but ended up covering 250 on his 10-day trek.

He had described it as his 'toughest physical and mental challenge.'

And examinations taken after the walk showed it was an even more remarkable achievement, with a fracture in one of the bones going into his prosthetic socket.

He said: "About six months ago I fell on my stump, really hurt it, and I couldn’t wear my leg for a couple of days because of the swelling.

"But then obviously just cracked on with it, didn’t think about getting it seen to.

"It was then that I started developing a lot of phantom pain, the sensation that your foot is still there and being attacked or stabbed or something.

"It feels like just being stabbed. I carried on and got some neuropathic drugs to help with the pain, but they also make you quite dopey, so I tried to stay away from them.

"The bone had snapped at the bottom but grew back at an angle and was forcing out the skin so while my leg was banging up and down when my leg was broken, that pincer – the little tooth thing hanging out the bottom – was steadily cutting the two nerves that serve your foot.

"It was getting more and more trashed, more and more swollen, more and more painful.”

Paul was scheduled to walk 232 miles but ended up covering 250 on his 10-day trek to Tatton Park, passing through Taunton, Bristol, Monmouth, Hereford, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Whitchurch and Crewe.

He has so far raised more than £8K and was exceptionally emotional as he crossed the finish line to be greeted by his family.

He said: “What started out as maybe a bit of a terrible idea turned out to absolutely be the case.

"If you’d asked me if I was going to finish after the first two days, where prosthetic failures made my stump resemble more of a pepperoni pizza slice than a residual limb, even I would have said that it’s a bit of a push.

“There were many, many dark hours on the road and this has been arguably the hardest physical and mental experience I’ve had so far in my life and considering the car crash I’ve had up to now, that’s saying something.

“That being said, a few things came to light for me personally.

"Human endeavor is one thing that should not be overlooked as well as spirit.

The father-of-four was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery during two previous incidents, received more than 114 wounds to his torso.

Remarkably, he had more than 400 pieces of shrapnel and stones removed from his body by surgeons, suffered a broken neck, a damaged left eye, was deafened in one ear and suffered a stroke, a brain injury and paralysis down his right side.

After surgery, he recovered and competed in the Invictus Games, where he won medals in cycling and archery.

But ongoing problems with his left leg have stopped him from enjoying family life with his children so he made the difficult decision to remove the troublesome limb, which he referred to as 'the wet fish'.

Before having the leg removed, he wrote a message on the limb which read: 'Dear leg, thanks for all the misery and admin you have caused over the last three years. See you later pal.'

He said: 'The leg is crap - it does not do anything and I call it the wet fish. It does not do anything but cause me grief and pain and it cannot get any worse."

Paul came up with the idea of walking from FORCE Cancer Charity’s Support Centre in Exeter to Cheshire for a bungee jump after raising $5,000 for the organization by completing the Three Peaks Challenge earlier this year.

FORCE offers free support to thousands of people in Devon dealing with a cancer diagnosis and all of its services are paid for by donations, grants, legacies and fundraising.

Ceri Bastyan, FORCE Community Fundraising Officer, said: "I have seen firsthand the sweat and tears that go into fundraising and the challenges that our supporters face when taking on crazy challenges such as this.

"Paul has taken that to a whole other level, having completed the 250-mile walk with a broken bone in his injured leg.

"No amount of words will be enough to thank him for completing this and raising such an incredible amount of money for FORCE.”