A TETRAPLEGIC Lake District man is to mark five years since the accident that caused his spinal injury by ascending Snowdon with the help of a team of family and friends.

Will Clark, of Grasmere, will be using a specially-adapted chair to be pushed up the mountain, and hopes to raise £5,000 for spinal injury charity Back-Up Trust in the process.

Back-Up is a charity which provided Will with support when he was in hospital following his devastating injury, and have worked with him since, enabling home to go on ski-ing holidays and attend conferences.

"I wanted to do something to mark the fact that it has been five years, and this is a charity challenge that Back-Up do every year as one of their big fundraisers," said Will. "There will probably be 10 people in chairs with their own support teams of approximately 15 people pushing them up there.

"We will shortly be taking delivery of a specially-adapted chair with a Ford Focus seat that has been designed specially for the challenge.

"We have the best terrain around here in the Lake District to do a few trial runs. For me the challenge will be a case of how rough the terrain is, but it will be the rest of them who are really putting a shift in.

"In 2006 I was involved in the team which helped push a family friend up Helvellyn. She parachuted from the top and we got a few funny looks pushing her empty chair back down the mountain!"

Will explained the importance of the work Back-Up do in helping those who have suffered spinal injuries.

As a result of their help, Will now mentors other people with similar injuries, including helping to integrate children effected into their schools.

Will said: "When I was in hospital and people were saying that things were going to be different I knew that for myself. What I needed was somebody to speak to who had gone through similar situation.

"Back-Up put me in touch with somebody who five years down the line form where I was and he gave me that peer support.

"I told me about what he had managed to do and some of those things are what I am doing now.

"When you are in intensive care and on a ventilator you don't think these things will ever be possible, but they are."

Will – who was a keen fell runner and skier – was left paralysed from the neck down after a freak cycling accident at Thirlmere.

Following his accident, he spent five months in the regional spinal unit at Middlesbrough before returning home to Grasmere.

Donations to Will's cause can be made via his JustGiving page, which is called 'Get Will up a Hill 2017'.