Pedal to help the wounded (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Pedal to help the wounded

4:09pm Thursday 1st May 2008

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ROYAL Air Force pilot Tim Burgess walked around with a broken neck for six months without realising and even continued to play rugby for Pewsey.

Now the Lyneham flyer is swapping his cockpit for a saddle for a charity bike ride.

The RAF flight lieutenant lives in Woodbor-ough with his wife Fiona.

He is going on the 340 mile bike ride in June to help raise funds for some of his injured service colleagues.

On June 1 he is setting off with hundreds of others on a 300 mile journey to France and back in aid of the charity Help For Heroes which helps injured service personnel and their families.

Mr Burgess was just a whisker away from needing treatment after his rugby injury in December 2006.

But he did not realise his neck was broken and carried on with his life, flying around the world and continuing to play rugger. He was unaware that a crunching tackle in a match at Pewsey had left him with a broken neck. By the time doctors discovered six months later that he had broken two vertebrae, they had fused together saving major surgery.

Mr Burgess said: "I was walking around with a broken neck without realising it."

He even rode in a Boxing Day hunt without knowing that he had broken the two bones. It was not until the following June when he was checked over by a doctor that he found out.

There will be about 3,000 riders in the Great British Hero Ride from June 1 to 6 which starts at HMS Victory at Portsmouth.

They will cross the channel to France and cycle around First and Second World War battlefields.

They will finally be picked up on the beach at Dunkirk and return across the channel on a Royal Naval assault ship.

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