Colchester paratrooper who was shot in the head climbs Ben Nevis

Dan ‘Eddy’ Edwards, 31, who was stationed at the Merville Barracks, in Colchester, served in Afghanistan in 2010 with the Parachute Regiment’s 3rd Battalion.

After getting into a firefight with the Taliban, the military man turned private landlord took a ricocheted machine gun bullet to the skull.

Four weeks later he awoke from an induced coma in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Birmingham, before being told he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Dan said: “I do not remember much but I remember looking down and my hand and my whole body amour was covered in blood.

“The next thing I know I am waking up in hospital and missing half of my skull because I had a brain haemorrhage so it had to be removed.

“I had to learn to do everything again - I am now paralysed on the left side of my body and have a titanium plate on one side of my head, but it does not stop me.”

Since then Dan has drawn on his unwavering never-give-in mentality in order to learn to walk again and subsequently climb Mount Snowdon and Scaffel Pike for charity.

He conquered his most recent challenge when he reached the peak of Ben Nevis after scaling the mountain’s 1,345 metre rocky structure.

His efforts have so far raised more than £4,500 for Support Our Paras, an organisation which has helped Dan on his road to recovery.

“I think on the way up and down the mountain a lot of people were inspired seeing someone like me with a disability climbing it,” said Dan.

“Going back 12 years I never would have thought I would be climbing mountains, doctors told me I would be in a chair for the rest of my life.

“But I told myself that would not happen. My walking has come a long way since then and I do this to prove I can still do things – I just crack on with it.

“Everything is one per cent physical and 99 per cent in the mind.”

To sponsor Dan visit justgiving.com/fundraising/EddyClimbsBenNevis.