71916-38A SKYDIVER paralysed in a freak accident has re-opened his Swindon business after 13 months in hospital.

Bob Soutar is lucky to be alive after a routine 12,000ft jump while on holiday went dramatically wrong.

He broke his neck and has been told he will be paralysed for life.

His parachute had opened as normal and he was just two metres from the ground when he was caught in turbulence in January last year.

He was on holiday in Spain when the accident happened at a skydiving centre on the Costa Brava.

After being helicoptered to hospital in Barcelona he was later flown back to the UK by air ambulance.

His business, training firm BS Secretarial and Computer Training Centre in Milton Road, had to close but he has now re-started it despite being paralysed from the neck down.

Mr Soutar, 51, who lives near Marlborough, has to have a carer with him 24 hours a day.

He said:"I jumped out of the aircraft and it was all normal. Everything was working and the parachute deployed as normal as I was coming into land.

"But about two metres off the ground some turbulence affected the canopy, the left side collapsed and I remember cart-wheeling into the ground head first.

"I was conscious and talking to the people around me, but the rest of my body felt completely numb."

He remained in hospital in Spain for a week, before being flown to a specialist spinal unit in Salisbury.

There, doctors told him he would probably be paralysed for life.

But he has been determined to regain at least some of his independence and, after 13 months in hospital, he decided to research alternative therapies.

Among them is the Bowen Technique, a light massage which has proved to be effective in treating various types of back injury,

And, in the next few weeks, he is planning to travel to France to try out Laserpuncture, which combines elements of acupuncture and laser therapy.

"These different treatments have been amazing," he said.

"I have quickly regained use of my neck and my shoulders and I now have full use of my left arm, which is now very strong. Unfortunately, all spinal injuries are a slow process."

Mr Soutar's business has now expanded into home learning as well as on-site tutoring. But he knows how closely he cheated death.

"No one at the skydive centre or myself had ever seen it before, and I have done more than 1,300 jumps," he said.

"I know the site is in between the mountains and the sea and is regularly affected by turbulence but other people on the jump had no problems.

"It was just a freak accident. If I had not been wearing my skydiving helmet I could have been brain damaged or even dead."

"I now just have to keep positive and my carer has been fantastic."

Anthony Osborne