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The first of five stories about inspiring local people who have benefited from physical activity and are now fronting the Get Active campaign.

Just four years ago 57-year-old Alan Burton went to work fit and healthy but by home time a dramatic turn of events changed his life upside down and threatened to prevent him from ever walking again.

While collecting some files on the loft space on top of the office that was built inside the warehouse where he worked he lost his footing on a ladder and slipped.

The ladder came away and Alan plummeted 30ft over the safety rail. He landed on his side but his head took the full impact on the concrete below.

In addition to a broken wrist and collar bone, Alan had broken his neck and underwent a five-hour operation to fit a metal plate.

He spent a month in Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge before he was moved to Stoke Mandeville Hospital for a further nine months.

There it was discovered that he had sustained a further fracture to his spine in the accident and Alan was told it was unlikely he would ever walk again, or ever be able to feed himself.

Alan said: “At that time the doctors told me I had two choices, they could operate to repair the damage through my rib cage in a seven-hour operation, which in my 50s would have been very risky, or I could lay on my back for six months and there was a chance it would fix itself. Thank God it fixed itself.

“I often ask myself what kept me positive over those four months. I know I spent a lot of time thinking about my wife Dawn and getting back to our holiday home in Spain.

"On top of that every month the hospital set me new goals like holding a knife and fork and learning to write again. There was never a time that I didn’t think I could accomplish these goals eventually.”

Alan and his wife Dawn’s life had been turned upside down. They had to move home to a specially adapted bungalow, and Alan was left unable to work.

However, eventually over time and with the help of trained physiotherapists and sheer determination, Alan built up his strength and learned to walk again with bars, zimmer frames and tripod sticks.

It was a slow process and after two-and-a-half years there was no more they could do to improve Alan’s mobility, but it was vital to his recovery and quality of life that he kept active and worked on his balance.

So he started working out at Haverhill Leisure Centre on the Exercise On Referral programme and has seen a dramatic improvement. The combination of hospital care, physiotherapy and exercise has led to a dramatic change in his life.

Alan, who lives in Churchill Avenue in Haverhill, said: “I have been successfully using the gym twice a week with my carer and the improvement in my strength and balance has exceeded my expectations, for example I now manage to walk around the supermarket holding on to the trolley, that is something I didn’t see happening this soon, but I put it down to my work at the gym.

“If I drop a pen I can now bend to pick it up, I drive a specially adapted car, and I have now encouraged my two step daughters to take up physical activity here at the Centre.

“After something like this happens to you, you really realise what is important in life. Four years ago I was told I would never walk again and this is not the life I imagined. How very glad I am to prove that theory wrong.”