AS HE chased what would be a lost point, Richard Moore's head crashed against the squash wall in front of him and his heart stopped beating.

It was the CPR from his daughter Claire and wife Julie that saved his life on that fateful day, but he was left paralysed and motionless in hospital with injuries to his spinal cord.

Fast-forward almost a year and through countless emotions, Richard has fulfilled his dream of walking out of Buckinghamshire's National Spinal Injuries Centre and has stepped through the door of his family home in Mount Crescent, Warley, after so many agonising hours of rehabilitation.

He now hopes his still continuing recovery will offer hope to Billericay Town goalkeeper Nick Morgan, who shares the same dream to walk out of hospital unaided after being left paralysed with similar injuries sustained in a late-night attack in Brentwood.

Although Richard is able to walk unassisted, full movement is still to return to his arms.

The father of two, 57, relived the moment his life was almost cut short on a family break to Center Parcs in Elvedon Forest, Suffolk, on March 20 last year, as they celebrated his wife's birthday.

He was playing his daughter's boyfriend at squash in the afternoon, a rematch after beating the younger man at badminton.

Richard, an assistant head teacher who hopes to return to his job in Harold Wood, this week told the Gazette: "I went running for a shot near the wall in front of me. I lost my footing as I was coming up to the wall and went careering into it head-first at full speed.

"That was when Julie and Claire, my daughter, came in, I was not breathing and they started resuscitating me straight away."

His wife and fellow teacher Julie said: "We were talking about going for a coffee just before but luckily we didn't because he would have died. There was no one else there."

Richard continued: "I came around while I was still on the squash court, but it hadn't dawned on me that I couldn't move anything.

"I remember my arms hurt and trying to tell the paramedics but I couldn't really speak at the time. When I was in the ambulance and heard the sirens going I thought, 'It must be serious here'."

It was at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge that Richard realised he was paralysed – he could not reach the buzzer for assistance.

Like Nick Morgan, his life-changing injuries hit home as he was transferred to the National Spinal Injuries Centre just a week later and began his long road to recovery.

He said: "Everything is built up very slowly. You can't go one day to the next and say, 'Look, my leg is moving more than yesterday.'

"You have to look at it almost in a month-by-month basis to see improvements. Certainly, when I went into the St George's ward I was like a rabbit caught in the headlight, wondering what was going on around me.

"I was totally reliant on somebody else for everything. There was nothing I could do for myself. I couldn't turn the pages of a paper, couldn't scratch my forehead, I couldn't drink myself."

His new life at the centre began in an acute ward, before being transferred to the St George's rehabilitation ward, where Nick Morgan is now being treated, and then onto yet another lower-grade ward as he prepared to leave.

During his months of agonising rehabilitation and with the support of his wife Julie, friends and family, he reached many milestones. He stood up aided for the first time in June, took his first steps that same month and finally walked out of the hospital, as he had dreamed of doing, on December 16.

He wants to give hope to Nick Morgan, who he met at the spinal centre last week as he went for a check-up and know exactly what he must be going through.

He said: "It seems as if Nick's situation is in many ways the same as mine. I hope it helps him seeing someone who has been through it and is walking again.

"That was always my aim – to walk out of hospital."

Julie added: "At the centre they are so skilled and share these skills. They help everyone reach their full potential and now we are carrying on with what they have taught us."

Richard continued: "They don't have a 'can't-have' attitude, they have a 'let's-try-and-see' attitude."

"The overriding thing is the encouragement from everybody else. If you saw anyone in the gym who was walking for the first time or having a breakthrough, people were almost cheering."

Richard is continuing to make progress at home with the constant support of his wife, family, friends and therapists in the community.

He is also going to the gym and is doing Pilates in his determination to make further improvements, particularly to his arms and hands.

He said: "That's the next aim, to be completely independent.

"I still have people coming into me to get me up, showered and dressed. Really the aim is to get rid of them, but I don't mean that nastily."