‘I can’t run any more but I am going to walk across a desert,” says injured Yorkshire soldier

The postponed trek will start on February 18 and end on March 9. The team will endure hunger, thirst and extreme temperatures to highlight the extraordinary courage and determination of the men and women who have been wounded while serving their countries and to draw attention to the support needed in their transition to civilian life.

Ben himself suffered nerve damage while serving as a captain in the Army eight years ago. But it took more than six years before he got the diagnosis and could start rebuilding his life

“Because the pain was in my legs everyone thought that I had some sort of physical injury in my legs,” explains Ben, now 33, from Catterick, North Yorkshire.

“But nothing seemed to make any difference. It wasn’t a progressive problem it would come in fits and starts which was really hard physically and mentally.”

Ben spent a lot of time at Help for Heroes funded army rehabilitation unit at Headley Court but his condition failed to improve.

“It was very hard. I was still able to work for the military although I did have to change my role. But I had been an endurance runner and very fit and running was one of the things I just couldn’t do any more. I did end up going to some dark places and I did wonder what the future held for me, I was still in the military but as I had no proper diagnosis it was really difficult to plan for the future.

“My injury has a huge impact on my day-to-day life. I’m in so much pain when I run that I often can’t even play with my children and, because all the sport I used to do involved running, which I can no longer do, I backed away from sport altogether for six years,” said the father of Archie, two, and Seb, six.

“All this pretty much destroyed my mental health in 2014 and again in early 2018.”

Eventually, in 2018, as Ben’s symptoms developed, tests revealed he was suffering from neural impingement and nerve damage in his lower limbs which is incurable.

“It was such a relief to have a diagnosis after six and a half years,” says Ben.

“Even though I was told it was a condition I was going to have to live with which would need constant rehabilitation, I felt that I could at last start to deal with it and move forward.

“I really wanted to challenge myself, to prove to myself what I could do rather than what I couldn’t.”

He started to direct his new-found confidence back into his love of sport, which included getting accepted on to the UK Team for the 2020 Invictus Games in the Hague taking part in the 50m Freestyle, 50m Backstroke and 100m Freestyle, as well as archery and shot and discus.

“Embarking on the Invictus journey reignited my love for swimming,” he says.