Walk or die: The terrible decision Lembit Opik faced when he broke his back paragliding in the middle of nowhere

From his exotic name (his parents were Estonian) to his high-profile relationships with weather presenter Sian Lloyd and Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia, to whom he is now engaged - not to mention his numerous TV appearances on shows such as The Apprentice and Have I Got New For You - Lembit is not a politician destined to keep a low profile.

But it could have been a very different story.

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In 1998, aged 33, and less than a year after he had first been elected as Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire, Mid-Wales, Lembit had an accident that nearly cost him his life.

It was April 13, and he had gone paragliding with his friend Rob Burridge in Montgomeryshire.

"I'd been keen on paragliding since the early Nineties," he recalls. "I have always been passionate about flying, and paragliding is the purest form of flying, utterly liberating - an almost transcendental experience.

"When you're paragliding you don't have the time or space to worry about unemployment or inflation rates.

"I'm not someone who goes looking for risk. I was aware of the danger but it was a theoretical danger."

He knew the cold and windy conditions that day weren't ideal.

"I took off first, and as soon as I lifted off the ground I realised I was in trouble," says Lembit.

"I got whipped up into the sky, as if I were going up in a lift, climbing at an incredible rate."

Lembit isn't certain what happened next. "Either the wind stopped, or I made a mistake with the air brakes and stalled, but the canopy collapsed and I found myself plummeting straight down to the ground.

" I was about 30 metres up, but it felt as if I was falling from the stratosphere."

Thankfully, he cannot remember the moment of impact. "The next thing I knew, I was coming round.

"I was lying on my side - Rob had put me in the recovery position - and I was in absolute agony. Blood was pouring from my mouth and I couldn't breathe properly.

"I can't describe the pain in my back - only someone who has suffered a similar injury could understand.

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"It felt as if someone had taken a dentist's drill and was driving it into the nerves in my back in 12 places, without any anaesthetic."

Lembit's flight had lasted less than a minute.

He had landed on the ground vertically, with tremendous force, and the shock wave of the impact had shattered his knees, four ribs, his sternum and jaw.

His back was broken in 12 places and he had lost six teeth.

Lembit then faced a terrible decision: walk or die.

"Rob couldn't get a mobile signal and we were a mile from the car.

"He knew that if he left me alone to fetch help, he might well come back to a corpse.

"I decided that I would rather die fighting. So, unsure of the extent of my injuries, and aware that it could cause permanent paralysis, Rob supported me as we walked each agonising step of that journey.

"Every footstep felt like a lifetime. The pain was so bad that I was hallucinating - about ten metres from the car, I remember seeing it receding away from me."

Rob drove Lembit to Llanidloes Hospital, 14 miles away. He was then taken by ambulance to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

As he drifted in and out of consciousness in the ambulance, Lembit remembers hearing the siren at a constant pitch.

Even today, he says, hearing an ambulance with this siren triggers his memories of the accident, bringing back the pain and the fear.

An MRI scan and an exploratory operation assessed the extent of Lembit's injuries.

Incredibly, he hadn't done any damage to his vital organs but the doctors weren't sure whether he would escape death or paralysis.

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Lembit recalls a near-death experience, when he saw himself lying in a room with two doors in front of him, both of which led to death, and one behind that was life.

"I remember thinking, 'I must go to the door behind. I am not ready to die yet.'"

According to Dr Mark Bacon, the head of research for the charity Spinal Research, there are between 800 and 900 spinal cord injuries in the UK each year, and about six times that number of spinal injuries - so called "near misses" - like Lembit suffered. About half are caused by falls.

"Lembit came down straight from a height of about 30 metres. This had a concertina effect on his vertebrae.

"He was extremely lucky that the vertebrae did their job, taking the brunt of the force and protecting the delicate spinal cord.

"Had he landed at a slightly different angle it's very likely that he could have been killed or paralysed or suffered severe neurological damage.

"To have done so much damage to the spine without causing lasting nerve damage is extremely rare."

Lembit spent five weeks in hospital. His jaw was wired up, he was put in a back brace and he had to lie still while his vertebrae healed. He says he slept up to 23 hours a day.

After his release from hospital, he was fitted with a removable back brace, which he had to wear for a year, and began the slow process of recovery and rehabilitation.

He required several dental procedures and physiotherapy but, incredibly, he made an almost complete recovery.

"I didn't ever consider stepping down as an MP - I was in fighting mode, not quitting mode. I had to take it slowly, but I was able to get back to work within a few months."

He says the accident has caused him few lasting problems.

"My teeth are still a mess and I have never put all the weight back on that I lost after the accident, but breaking my back hasn't affected my walking or stopped me doing anything.

"For about a year, I lost some feeling in my right leg, but it came back. Very occasionally now, I get patches of numbness."

He has been paragliding once more in January 1999 to prove he could still do it.

"I didn't enjoy it," says Lembit. "In truth, it was tempting fate, and I won't take that risk again."

He says talking to other survivors of spinal accidents has helped him greatly, which is why he is supporting Spinal Research's new website initiative, myspine, the first social networking site for people with spinal injuries and their friends and families.

"Talking about my accident was an important part of the healing process for me. Knowing that other people are going through the same thing stops you feeling so alone," he says.

Lembit believes his accident has changed him.

"I now see it as a journey which began on April 13, 1998. Coming so close to death has taken away some of the fear of being alive. It's made me more relaxed when things go wrong.

"In the past I might have burst a blood vessel if I got stuck in traffic on the M6; these days things like that don't wind me up. I've learned to appreciate the mundane."

• Spinal Research, www.spinal-research.co.uk, 01483 898786. www.myspine.org.