AS HE lay in unbearable pain in hospital having just had his left foot amputated, there was only one thing on Sergeant Ricky Banner’s mind.

He wanted to honour a promise to marry his fiancée Tracey Palmer, the mother of his one-year-old son Jayden. And, most importantly, he was determined to walk down the aisle on the big day.

Sgt Banner, aged 28, who was born in Blackheath, Sandwell, and serves in the 1st Battalion of the Irish Guards, was on patrol in Afghanistan with his men when tragedy struck.

He was conducting a clearance with the other soldiers in the dangerous Upper Gereshk Valley, 20 miles from Camp Bastion.

He stepped on a partially detonated land mine and was engulfed in an explosion.

The blast, last December, didn’t cost him his life, but it left him severely injured.

The soldier was flown back to the UK and transferred to Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where he gave surgeons permission to amputate his shattered left foot and ankle.

Then he spent six weeks at Headley Court, the military rehabilitation Centre in Surrey, and it was there that he decided one of his goals, apart from regaining full fitness, would be to plan a fairy tale wedding for Tracey.

And he would do it secretly.

Sgt Banner said: “I saw the BBC programme Don’t Tell The Bride when I was on leave in late November.

“ I said to Tracey ‘I would be able to do that easily’ and she said ‘Okay, try it’. I dropped myself right in it!”

“As soon I went to Headley Court, they said set goals, one short term and one long term.

“My goal was to walk down the aisle and they said I should be up and running. By the end of April, I was actually jogging.”

Despite being in pain, he threw himself into the role of a secret wedding planner when he was allowed back to his Aldershot home, with Tracey caring for him.