'Miraculous' recovery for Peshawar massacre schoolboy

A teenager paralysed after being shot four times in Pakistan's deadliest terror attack has made a "miraculous" recovery following treatment in the UK.

Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, 13, had been told by doctors in Pakistan that he would never walk again.

At least 140 people, mostly children, were killed when gunmen stormed Peshawar's Army Public School last December.

Muhammad, who arrived in London last month for surgery, is being discharged from hospital later.

Exactly nine months ago, on an ordinary Tuesday morning, Muhammad sat in his first aid class listening to his teachers intently.

At the same time seven gunmen disguised in security uniforms were entering the Army Public School. They were strapped with explosives and had one simple mission in mind: Kill every man, woman and child they came across.

"I can't forget what happened that day," Muhammad says with a severe stare.

"We were sitting in the auditorium, we were asking questions… and then we heard heavy gunfire outside."

"The terrorists moved inside and they started killing - our teacher was burned alive."

Muhammad described pulling four other pupils out of the auditorium as the carnage unfolded. He said he then heard his friend, Hamza calling to him.

"He said, 'oh brother save me'."

"I held his hand. That's when I was shot in the back, and he was shot in the head."

Most of the people killed in the attack were pupils

Hamza died in Muhammad's arms.

Muhammad recalled blacking out after that, and the next thing he knew he was in a hospital bed, paralysed from the waist down.

Doctors in Peshawar in northern Pakistan, and then Rawalpindi, close to the capital, told his family there was no treatment, and he would never walk again.

"Seeing him I felt like my soul had left my body," says Muhammad's father, Sher Khan

"Those nine months were the hardest in my life."

Road to recovery

But Mr Khan and his wife, Sherbano, refused to believe that their cricket-mad son would never be able to use his legs again.

They campaigned, and appealed for help on Pakistani TV, gaining the support of high profile people such as cricketer turned politician Imran Khan, who came to visit Muhammad in hospital.

Finally, they were able to raise the funds to bring Muhammad to the UK, thanks to Pakistani property developer Malik Riaz Hussain, and get him treatment at London's The Harley Street Clinic.

Consultant neurosurgeon Irfan Malik described Muhammad as "terrified" when he first arrived at the hospital.

"He'd spent the last [few] months lying on a bed, unable to move side to side," says Mr Malik. "He was weak, he had a pressure sore [on his back]. He wasn't in great shape."

A vertebra at the base of Muhammad's spine was destroyed

Muhammad was shot in his shoulder, his hip, and his back during the attack, damaging his lower spine - leading to paralysis.

But during six hours of surgery, Mr Malik and his team were able to reattach nerve endings and reconstruct the damaged part of the spine.

Even Mr Malik was surprised at what happened next.

"Exactly one week after the surgery Muhammad stood up and started taking steps and walking."

"We were not expecting to get that sort of excellent result. That was miraculous," he says.

Hope and anger

Less than two weeks after his operation, Muhammad is ready to leave hospital and start the long road to recovery.

Muhammad has defied the odds and started to walk again

He says he wants to build his strength and continue his education in the UK.

But he says he is determined to return to Pakistan, join the army and help fight terrorism.

"I feel like I have a second chance at life," he says as he shows off pictures he's drawn of guns scribbled out next to school books and pens

Muhammad's drawings reference his experience

Muhammad grows physically stronger every day but the psychological trauma he continues to endure is unimaginable.

"My anger is not diminishing" he says. "In my school little kids were killed. What was their crime?"

His mother, wiping a tear from her eye, caressed his head and said: "I can see my son walking again. He'll be able to get on with his normal life".