WAR HERO’S JOY ‘I’LL MARRY THE NURSE WHO SAVED ME’

DAVID LOST HIS LEGS IN AFGHANISTAN... BUT FROM HEARTACHE CAME HOPE

It all happened so fast. One moment soldier David Birrell was on a routine patrol in Afghanistan. The next he’d been blown up by a Taliban bomb.

‘After the explosion took my legs, I thought my life was over,’ David, 32, candidly tells New Idea.

‘I was catapulted into the air and landed hard on my stomach. Dust flew everywhere as the Taliban starting firing over my head.

‘Suddenly, a sharp pain shot down my spine and I realised how bad my injuries were.’

David’s boot had been blown clean off his left foot and both his legs were mangled. The three-time Afghanistan veteran was rushed to the field hospital at Camp Bastion, where he woke up terrified at what he’d find. ‘I was heartbroken to see my left leg was gone from the knee down. Although I had my right leg at that point, I knew it would never be the same again.’ Two days later, he was transferred to a hospital in Birmingham in the UK, where medics took an artery out of his left arm, along with skin for a graft, and transplanted it into his right leg. But the brave dad was then plagued by infections. ‘I was worried about what my children would think. My oldest son burst into tears and the youngest wouldn’t come near me,’ David recalls. ‘One minute I’m their hero, and the next I’m in a wheelchair being pushed about.’ One of the nurses assigned to care for David was Mary Parkinson – a woman who David credits for making him feel ‘like a human being’. ‘We were just friends but we got on really well,’ he recalls. ‘She’d always ask me if I wanted anything from the shop, or wheel me outside for a cigarette.’ Meanwhile, David’s marriage was in crisis. The relationship had been unhappy before he left for Afghanistan, but now it hit rock-bottom. ‘I felt like an inconvenience,’ he admits. ‘I’d been so fit and active, but I wasn’t the man she thought she could live with anymore. I felt a bit sorry for her. ‘I was the breadwinner and now she was having to do things for me.’ In October 2011, David was struck another blow. Doctors were forced to amputate his right leg too. The operation led to complications which nearly killed him. ‘That really put things into perspective. I knew I couldn’t go on being a victim,’ he says.

After splitting from his wife, David had a short-lived relationship, and welcomed a daughter, but it didn’t last. To compound his heartache, he was medically discharged from the Army after 12 years of service.

‘It’s easy to sit and dwell, but the hardest thing is to do something about it,’ he says.

Incredibly, David established a new career as a successful racing driver – quickly amassing a Facebook following of more than 12,000 people.

And one day the nurse who had helped save him – Mary – ‘liked’ his page.

‘I’d thought about Mary quite a lot over the years and when I saw she liked the page, my heart beat a little faster,’ David admits.

‘I was over the moon and messaged her to thank her for looking after me.’

It wasn’t long before he’d asked her for a drink and, after a few dates, the pair were inseparable.

Then, David arrived home with flowers, prosecco and a ring and asked her to marry him.

‘I went down on both knees – not one, obviously – and she was crying as she said: “Yes,”’ he recalls.

‘Now I feel proud to be alive. My legs are gone, but I’m not. And whatever I face, I know it’ll be easier with Mary by my side.’

The pair – who live together in East Lothian, Scotland – will wed next year.

‘As I got to know David I really felt for him,’ Mary says.

‘I looked forward to seeing him and I began to wonder if there was anything more than friendship there.

‘But I had to be professional and so I had no choice but to push my feelings to the back of my mind.

‘I thought about him a lot over the years and last year, David was stuck on my mind.

‘When he sent me a message on Facebook I felt butterflies, and the rest is history.

‘When he was my patient I’d never have thought I’d end up marrying him, but he’s the love of my life.’

‘MY LEGS ARE GONE, BUT I’M NOT. WHATEVER I FACE, I KNOW IT’LL BE EASIER WITH MARY BY MY SIDE’

David was in Afghanistan when he was blown up by a Taliban bomb. In the months that followed, he lost both his legs.

Following his near-death experience, David (left, with Prince Harry) thought his life was over, but he has since found success as a racing driver and found love with nurse, Mary (below).