BBC journalist Frank Gardner on life in a wheelchair

Frank Gardner, the BBC journalist who has spinal-cord injuries after being shot in Saudia Arabia, swaps tales of life in a wheelchair with our writer, who has the same condition.

In 2005, my wife Penny watched a news item about the BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, who had suffered a spinal-cord injury after being shot by al-Qaeda gunmen in Saudi Arabia. He was pictured standing in callipers and taking his first tentative steps.

Penny was in the waiting area of the Royal London Hospital; I was in the operating theatre after falling from a tree in which I was working. I had broken my spine, leaving me paraplegic.