A DREAM family holiday to Cyprus in April turned into a nightmare when an accident in a swimming pool left a dad paralysed from his neck down.

Ben Wernham from Avening slipped while he was playing with his two children, his seven-year-old step-daughter Olivia and two-year-old Iris, breaking his neck in three places.

“It was a complete freak incident, he was playing with his girls when he lost his footing and slipped,” said Emily Murray, a close friend of the family.

“He hit his head on the bottom of the pool and instantly lost the use of his body."

After surgery in Cyprus to stabilise his three broken vertebrae, the travel insurance company organised the air ambulance to bring him back to the UK.

But flying Ben home did not turn out to be simple when the pilot had to make an emergency landing in Germany after pneumonia meant that Ben went into septic shock – a life-threatening condition that happens when your blood pressure drops to a dangerously low level after an infection.

It was touch and go for the next few hours as emergency services worked to save Ben’s life on the runway and then to make sure he was stable enough to be transferred to hospital.

He spent the next 10 days in intensive care at a hospital near Munich recovering where medical staff also fitted him with a tracheotomy to help him breathe through a ventilator.

Once doctors deemed Ben stable enough to travel again, he was brought back to the UK via RAF base, Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

After spending a further two and a half months in Gloucestershire Royal Hospital Intensive Care Unit he was transferred to the Spinal Treatment Centre at Salisbury District Hospital.

In the light of Ben’s life-changing injuries friends and family are rallying round to help support him.

To move him home from hospital they will need build an extension and kit out his house with the right equipment which will enable him to live back with his family.

Their plan is to fund wheelchair access to his Avening home, build an extension and raise money to pay for a live-in carer.

Emily said: “Ben is really determined to be up and about as much as he can and get his independence back.

“He’s still exactly the same person and can speak his mind no problem.

“The staff at hospital are trying to set him up with specialist equipment and he can now use voice recognition on his iPad and able to talk to his daughters at home.”

Although Ben, who is a project officer at LB Bentley in Brimscombe, has had an operation to inflate his lungs which had collapsed, numerous chest infections and spent months on a ventilator, he is now able to breathe by himself.

Friends and family have started a fundraising page, Best for Ben, which has already collected more than £7,000 in just five days.

The Avening Film Club have committed to host a viewing to donate money towards the cause and friends from Avening Primary School are competing in a Dragon Boat Race at South Cerney on September 25th in Cirencester.

Campaigners behind the Best for Ben initiative are hosting a promises auction at the Social Club in Avening on Friday, October 21 at 7.30pm.

Ben's fiancée Ella Constable said: ''The support we've received so far has been absolutely overwhelming, we are so grateful to those who've donated.

“Also a massive thanks to The Mark Townsend Trust, Tetbury Lions club, Tetbury in Relief and Simon Harwood at Autobody Tech in Inchbrook for keeping my car roadworthy and topped up with fuel for the four-hour round trip to Salisbury three times a week."

To donate go to gogetfunding.com/best4ben or go to the Facebook page for more details facebook.com/best4ben/?rc=p