Curling made injured firefighter David Melrose 'complete again'
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David Melrose, left, is part of an all Scottish team at the Winter Paralympics
Former firefighter David Melrose has described how his sport helped him feel "complete again" after suffering life-changing injuries while tackling a blaze in the Scottish Borders.
The wheelchair curler from Duns was left paralysed from the waist down after being struck by a falling steel beam in 2010.
It saw him spend about seven months in hospital recovering from his injuries.
Now he is set to make his Winter Paralympics debut as part of an all Scottish Team GB next month.
He will represent Great Britain between 5 and 12 March in China alongside fellow Scots Gregor Ewan, Hugh Nibloe, Meggan Dawson-Farrell and Charlotte McKenna.
The former firefighter was left paralysed from the waist down after his accident in 2010
Prior to his accident, the father-of-two was an active sportsman, playing golf and badminton, as well as having been a goalkeeper in semi-professional football.
"After the accident, the first years was really just living with disability and trying to come to terms with it," he told the PA news agency.
"But after three years I found something was just missing inside me - and my wife had mentioned the same thing."
It was only after he tried curling that things began to change.
"After I started to take it more seriously, my kids actually said to Sheila (Swan, British wheelchair curling head coach): 'It's good to have my dad back'," he said.
"I hadn't realised that I had been missing something. It certainly made me complete again."
Melrose, who celebrates his 56th birthday on Wednesday, began his working life on a farm and later had a three-year stint as a council gravedigger, before realising a childhood dream by becoming a firefighter.
He was part of a retained crew at the time of his accident.
The Borderer said his team could compete with anyone at the Winter Paralympics
During his rehabilitation, he said he often put pressure on himself to hide his true feelings from his family and received mental health support to deal with the life-changing spinal injury.
"I was quite blasé and showed quite a lot of front that the accident wasn't really impacting on me because I didn't want the family to think I was feeling down," he said.
"But fortunately the fire brigade had set me up with some sessions with a cognitive behaviourist.
"I got myself sorted out. I'm not ashamed, I was lucky that I got mental health (support) to help me get through that."
Melrose, who joined the British Curling programme in 2018 and was part of the team which won world silver on home ice in Stirling the following year, is determined to make the most of his maiden Games.
"We can compete with anybody," he said. "But any medal for us would be tremendous.
"As long as we bring our A game we should be OK.
"I'm going definitely to try and enjoy myself, soak up the atmosphere, take everything that's available that we can do, and then when we're on ice switch back to competitive mode."