Disabled major reaches £1m target

Major Phil Packer, 36, was told he would never walk again after suffering a spinal injury in a rocket attack in Iraq in February last year.

But despite losing the use of his legs he has completed a series of inspirational challenges, from rowing the Channel to walking the London Marathon, to raise money for the charity Help for Heroes.

Maj Packer, who lives in Westminster, London, now has one final fundraising mountain to climb before he concentrates his efforts on promoting opportunities for disabled people.

On June 9 he will start a three-day attempt to pull himself 1,800ft up the sheer rock face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in the US - the equivalent of 4,254 pull-ups.

Maj Packer, of the Royal Military Police, rowed across the Channel in February, almost a year to the day after he was wounded in Basra, southern Iraq.

This month he crossed the finishing line of the London Marathon a fortnight after it began, having walked the course on crutches at the pace of two miles a day.

The soldier, who has served in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and Northern Ireland, spent today training for his attempt on El Capitan on the climbing wall at the Westway Sports Centre in west London.

Help for Heroes was set up in October 2007 to galvanise public support for British troops injured in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The initial aim was to raise enough money to build a gym and full-size swimming pool at the military's main rehabilitation centre, Headley Court in Surrey. But a huge response saw £17 million donated in its first 17 months.