Royal Marine injured in Afghanistan carries Paralympic flame

Lance Corporal Pete Dunning, along with other Service personnel from the 'Battle Back' rehabilitation scheme, travelled to Canada with Britain's Paralympic Team to gain experience for his bid to compete in the next winter paralympic competition in 2014.

He was injured in Afghanistan in 2008 when the Viking vehicle he was travelling in ran over an improvised explosive device. His colleague, Marine Dale Gostick, was killed in the incident, and LCpl Dunning lost most of his lower legs and was left with spinal damage.

LCpl Dunning recalled:

"I can remember the whole day before the incident, but from the point of impact, I can't remember what happened.

"I woke up back at Camp Bastion nearly 12 hours later and was told that Dale had passed away. I was only awake for about five seconds, so it was when I was back in the UK in Selly Oak [Hospital] that I finally started to realise what had happened.

"Understandably it was hard at the time and I was in bed for five weeks and I couldn't sit up or anything.

"The staff at Selly Oak were really great. They wanted me to get well as soon as possible and they really supported me.

"I've never been a person to let myself get down so I decided to just get on with things. I started rehabilitation at Headley Court [the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre] which really helped me get going."

LCpl Dunning then got involved with Battle Back, a tri-Service initiative which uses adventure training and sport to aid the rehabilitation and return to an active life for Service personnel. He said:

"Skiing opportunities came up with Battle Back and I decided that, as I hadn't done it before, it would be interesting to find out how I would do it.

"We went to Bavaria for two weeks to learn how to ski and it was definitely difficult to learn it, but once I'd got it, there was no stopping me!"

He is now hoping to compete in the Winter Paralympic Games in 2014 and therefore went to Vancouver with other future paralympic hopefuls to experience the olympic set up.

As well as taking part in curling and sledge hockey training, he managed to squeeze in some precious skiing practice and, as LCpl Dunning sees it, the more practice he can get, the better:

"I'm off to Whistler to do some skiing training and then later this month I'm taking part in the Canadian National Championships which I'm very nervous about."

The ultimate highlight of LCpl Dunning's Vancouver experience though was taking part in the iconic Paralympic torch relay:

"I carried the flame for a few hundred metres as part of the 24-hour relay that they did to launch the Paralympics.

"The people who run it had wanted a person from Great Britain to take part and all of our names were put in a hat and, luckily for me, mine was chosen. I couldn't quite believe it when my name was announced.

"Actually, carrying the flame, I couldn't really enjoy it properly as I was too busy concentrating on not falling over or messing it up! It was great to have the other Battle Back boys there as well as my girlfriend, so I felt like there was a lot of support for me.

"I'm very proud to have carried the Paralympic flame; it's definitely a story to tell the kids."