WHEN Didcot Rugby Club flanker John Galpin ran out for a Saturday afternoon league clash on September 26 last year, he had it all.

The 26-year-old’s daughter Macie had been born in March and he was due to marry girlfriend Taqwa Hyatt, 24, in December.

Fifteen minutes later, he was fighting for his life.

He was sitting bolt-upright on the turf when two players collapsed on top of him, forcing his head down into his chest.

Mr Galpin, of Millar Close, Benson, said: “I didn’t black out. I remember trying to talk to the ref to get him to stop the game.

“The rest of my body was completely numb. I couldn’t feel a thing below my shoulders, but all I remember is the worst pain I had ever felt in my neck.”

The impact had ripped two vertebrae out of his spine, putting intense pressure on the spinal chord. Below the neck, he was paralysed.

Six hours later, he underwent emergency surgery at the John Radcliffe Hospital, in Oxford. When he came round at 2am, anxious doctors asked him if he could move any part of his body.

“I said I could feel something in my left foot,” he said. “Then I tried to move it and one toe started wiggling.”

For two-and-a-half months, physiotherapists at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, near Aylesbury, coaxed his body into moving again, toe by toe, finger by finger.

The former St Birinus School pupil said: “I was petrified at being paralysed. I became totally reliant on people doing everything for me.

“It was like being a baby again, and having to learn everything. The physiotherapist sort of tricked me into standing up, and when I took my first steps again, I was overjoyed.”

On his first weekend home, he watched the rescheduled league clash against Maidenhead, which had been abandoned when he was injured two months earlier.

“I was a little bit wobbly, but it was really good. I went up at half-time and told the team to sort themselves out. One of the players told me to shut up and go back to hospital,” he joked.

“I count myself as very lucky. At the JR, they fixed my neck into place and saved my life. At Stoke Mandeville, the care was just amazing.

“And throughout, I have had incredible support from the RFU Injured Players Foundation.”

The foundation paid for Taqwa to take extended maternity leave as she nursed her fiancé back to health.

He had been walking again for less than a month when the couple married at Clifton Hampden Church on December 19.

He said: “Taqwa was there every single day. She would be there to feed me, to help wash me and just to keep me company. She picked me up at low points. She gave me a bit of tough love when I was frustrated with everything.

Mrs Galpin said: “Everyone tells me I’ve been so good and some people wouldn’t have stuck through this, but we’re probably stronger now than ever.”

Mr Galpin, who will never be able to play contact sports again, is now fully mobile and back at work as a regional co-ordinator for an IT company. Didcot Rugby Club is holding a fundraising match for the Injured Players Foundation on Sunday, February 21, in honour of former club chairman Martin Llewelyn, who died in November.