COUPLE’S BIG DAY
AS he stood at the altar, waiting for his beautiful bride to walk down the aisle, James Thorpe hardly dared believe his luck.
For this was a moment fiancee Michaela Watson and their friends and family never expected to see.
Just over a year ago, the couple had been forced to cancel their wedding after fireman James was paralysed in a freak accident on his stag do in Majorca.
Two hours after arriving in Magaluf, James tripped and fell while paddling in the sea. He banged his head on the sea bed, breaking his neck.
He was told by doctors he would never walk again, but James was determined to give Michaela the wedding she had dreamed of.
And on Friday, with help from some specialist frames and equipment, he stood to take his vows and later whirled his new bride around the floor for their first dance.
James said: “It was the best day of my life. It meant everything to me. What happened to me was terrible, but it could have been worse.
“Having the love of my life by my side throughout everything has given me the strength to do what doctors told me I wouldn’t.
“I couldn’t be prouder to call Michaela my wife and I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together.”
And Michaela said: “To see James standing there making his vows to me was a dream come true.
“It couldn’t have been a more perfect way to celebrate with all of our friends and family around us. We couldn’t have got through all this without their support.”
James, 29, and Michaela, 33, met in 2012, and he proposed on a holiday at Disney World, Orlando, in 2014.
They were to get married on June 24, last year, but that awful slip in the sea put paid to their plans.
James said: “It was a complete freak accident, simply caused by me running into the sea.
“You can hardly tell people not to do that on their holidays.
“There were six of us there looking forward to a great week away, but for me, it was over within a matter of hours and changed my life forever.”
Michaela, who rushed to the island to be by James’s bedside after the accident, said: “We spent two years planning our big day and it was heartbreaking to think it might not go ahead.
“James’s goal then was to make it down the aisle and it’s kept him going through everything.
“It was my worst nightmare when I found out what happened and I was devastated when I saw him, but he’s been so positive along the way.”
His training as a fire fighter meant James knew instantly what he had to do after he fell.
Michaela said: “He kept really calm and luckily one of his friends spotted him going under the water or he would have drowned. He was directing his friends to tell them what to do and they made a headrest out of sand so he could keep his neck still.
“He was even liaising with a nurse who happened to be there to make sure he didn’t do anything to make his injuries worse.”
James was rushed to a hospital in Palma de Mallorca, where he spent two weeks in a critical condition.
He had broken his C7 vertebra, leaving him paralysed from the chest down, and medics told him he would never walk again.
Surgeons took bone from James’s hip to repair the damage to his neck before he was flown back to the UK to undergo intense physiotherapy treatment. He began attending rehab three times a month at a private clinic in Watford, Herts, which was paid for with help from fundraising efforts by friends and family. He took his first steps at Sheffield Northern General Hospital on May 24, when he walked with the aid of a robotic exo-skeleton suit and walking frame. James said: “It was the greatest achievement. I was definitely very tearful when it happened. I felt like I was making some real progress and it gave me real hope. “Some days it felt like I was going nowhere, but this really gave me the boost I needed to keep going. This rehab has been paid for by all the