TWENTY years ago, Russell Baynham (pictured) was told by a doctor that he probably wouldn't walk again after a horrific motorcycle crash in Germany.

Today he is looking forward to the future after fighting his way back from "hell" to walk un- aided after spending two years confined to a wheelchair and 17 years walking with crutches.

He told the Argus: "People think I'm a walking miracle but it's taken 20 years of hell to get back on my feet."

Mr Baynham, 44, was crippled after his motorcycle collided head-on at 50mph with a Mercedes in North Bavaria in 1983 while he was in the country visiting friends.

He remembers little of the incident, saying: "I saw the car lights and everything went black. I woke up in hospital the next day and the doctors had covered my leg with a sheet so I couldn't see it."

Mr Baynham suffered compound fractures to the tibia and the fibula of his left leg and underwent an immediate operation to fit a steel pin through the centre of the bone.

Several more operations later the doctors told Mr Baynham it was unlikely he'd ever walk again.

Mr Baynham, from Goytre, said: "I was gutted, very very sad. I remember phoning my dad from Bavaria and crying my eyes out down the phone. What sort of news is that for a 23-year-old to hear?"

For two years Mr Baynham was forced to get around in a wheelchair and then progressed to crutches which he needed for 17 years.

In 1992 Mr Baynham met Glen McKechan, a specialist in remodelling legs who diagnosed osteomyelitis, inflammation of the bone, in his leg. In a risky operation Mr Baynham had five inches removed from the bone and then fight through the pain as it grew back one millimetre per day for 42 weeks.

"It was painful, tearfully so at times, but I just had the attitude that I wanted to save my leg no matter what I had to endure."

Off the crutches now and only occasionally using a stick to walk to see him through "aches and pains", Mr Baynham, who was previously living in Bristol, has now set up a landscape gardening business - something he loves.

"I've been a keen gardener since I was six and after getting a City and Guilds in Horticulture at St Loyes Disabled College in Exeter, I've returned to Gwent to be near my fiance."