OWEN PICK insists he made the best decision of his life the day he agreed for his leg to be amputated.
For after watching his life and body be shattered when he stood on an improvised explosive device (IED) as a teenager on his first tour of Afghanistan, he is about to make his Paralympic debut as a snowboarder when the Games kick off in PyeonChang tomorrow.
Pick, 26, from Barton Mills near Cambridge, left school at 16 and went straight into the Army. Just three months into his first tour in Helmand Province, he stepped on an IED and woke up in hospital two days later with his leg in bits.
He said: "The doctors had managed to save it and I had operations but I couldn't use it properly and it was giving me pain all the time. The heel, the foot and the shin were completely shattered.
"I wasn't a nice person to be around as I didn't want to speak to anyone and it was tough because I was only 18 and wanted to go out with my friends and play sport with my mates and I couldn't. I just sat there and it dragged me down.
"After 18 months the doctors gave me the option to get rid of my leg. Once I had the leg off it was the best decision I ever made. It gave me my life back and freed up my hands from using crutches.
"I could walk, the pain had gone and within three months I was rock climbing in Spain. But I never thought then that one day I'd be at the Paralympics representing my country."
As the time drew near for him to leave the Amy he was sent on a snowboarding course, never having even been on a ski slope before.
He tuned out to be a natural, going on to win silver at the World Championships in the SB-LL2 category last year and ending his Para Snowboard Worrld Cup final campaign with a bronze medal.
He said: "My first couple of seasons saw me getting top eights, top tens, but last season I managed to get silver at the World Championships which came as a big surprise to me. All of a sudden I'd worked out how to snowboard quite well."
"Now my target is to get on the podium in South Korea or there is no point being there. You get a moment and you seize it.
"It's also a point to prove to myself that I can do it. You need that drive to win or there is no point doing it.
"It feels amazing, to go from where I started five years ago when I was just snowboarding around, to now being selected on the team.
"It's really cool, but to be part of the first British snowboard team to go to a Winter Paralympics makes it even cooler.
"You're representing your country but also being the first guys to be able to do something is a big thing."