A PARATROOPER who lost both legs in a landmine explosion in Afghanistan has jumped out of a plane to raise money for wounded soldiers.<\/p>\n
Ben Parkinson, the most seriously wounded British soldier to survive the war in Afghanistan, took part in yesterday\u2019s \u201cfantastic\u201d charity skydive for to help other wounded soldiers.<\/p>\n
He jumped from a plane 4,572 metres in the air, strapped in a tandem harness with an instructor.<\/p>\n
Parkinson carried out the skydive to raise money and awareness for military charity the Pilgrim Bandits, a Special Forces charity that recently expanded to support other service members.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fantastic,\u201d he said after landing in Netheravon, Wiltshire, southern England.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to challenge other people to get up to exciting things like I have done. If I can do it, anyone can. I want other people who have been injured to get up and live their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parkinson lost both his legs and suffered brain injuries and a broken spine when he was struck by a landmine explosion in September 2006 while on patrol in Afghanistan\u2019s Helmand province.<\/p>\n
Although he was told he would never walk, talk or even feed himself again, he defied medical experts by overcoming severe physical difficulties.<\/p>\n
It was the second time the soldier made a tandem skydive with the Royal British Legion\u2019s extreme human flight team, Jump4Heroes.<\/p>\n
He made his first dive earlier this month on the anniversary of the 9\/11 terror attacks, which was also the eve of the fourth anniversary of the incident in which he was seriously injured.<\/p>\n
Jump4Heroes\u2019 team captain, BASE jumping champion Maj. Alastair Macartney, said the group was \u201cextremely humbled\u201d when the serviceman approached them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the Jump4Heroes team are serving in the armed forces, so we are all affected by Ben\u2019s tragic accident,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to aid Ben in this fantastic physical achievement after such horrific injuries is a great achievement for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A PARATROOPER who lost both legs in a landmine explosion in Afghanistan has jumped out of a plane to raise money for wounded soldiers. Ben Parkinson, the most seriously wounded British soldier to survive the war in Afghanistan, took part in yesterday\u2019s \u201cfantastic\u201d charity skydive for to help other wounded soldiers. He jumped from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}