IT'S been more than six years since Nick Verron was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver in Boscombe.

At the time doctors thought he would never be able to talk or walk again.

But Nick, who is now 31 and now living independently, has been appointed as lead ambassador for Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital after taking unaided steps.

"The team at Royal Bucks have taken me under their wing and made me part of their family so that we can all work together to bring about change," said Nick.

"Learning to walk again whilst also helping others is better than I could have ever hoped for.

"Royal Bucks can and do make dreams come true and won’t let circumstance get in the way."

Nick has been using an exoskeleton bionic suit and is learning how to walk again.

"Having the exoskeleton remind my brain what it felt like to walk was a fantastic feeling," said Nick, who lives in Aylesbury.

"Over and over again, I just kept getting up and taking a few steps. Every time I fell over, I got back up again and walked just to see if it’d been a fluke but it wasn’t."

Nick normally uses an electric wheelchair to get around but sees this suit as a sign of things to come in brain injury rehabilitation.

He said the role as lead ambassador included meeting people to give them "hope and determination, to show people that there is life after brain injury, to connect isolated people with all the help out there and generally improve people's lives in creative ways that I couldn't possibly do alone".

"It wasn’t long ago I couldn’t even sit up and not long before that I couldn’t even talk," he added.

"When my attacker stabbed through my left temple with a 10 inch screwdriver in 2009 he did so with so much force that the handle smashed my skull leaving fragments strewn in my brain.

"This resulted in a subarachnoid haemorrhage and left me in a coma.

"I’m told that the best I could hope for was to wake up and have the mentality of a happy two-year-year old.

"But belief in myself, against all odds, has clearly paid off."