A DOUBLE amputee from South Lakeland who has become one of the world’s best skydivers has reached the final of the Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons.

Former paratrooper Al Hodgson has been nominated for the Against All Odds award as global hearing specialist Amplifon searches for unsung heroes who represent ‘The Best of British’.

Al, from Hale, near Milnthorpe, was injured when an IRA booby trap went off in 1992 while he was serving in the elite Parachute Regiment stationed in Northern Ireland.

He lost his left leg below the knee and his right leg was amputated just under his hip. He spent the next seven years in hospital.

In 1998, while kayaking in the Lake District on an outdoor pursuits weekend, a member of the Red Devils Parachute Display Team suggested that Al did a tandem skydive near Nottingham at Skydive Langar.

He embarked on a training programme and, a year later, he became Britain’s first double amputee skydiver and the world’s first double amputee to learn to skydive post injury. He later went on to skydive with the army’s freefall display team, the Red Devils.

Al even skydived on his wedding day, leaping out of a hot air balloon in Arizona with wife Pixie after marrying her at 5,500ft.

He began competing at national level in 2007, winning six gold medals in a freestyle skydiving team with his wife. The Soldiers’ Charity paid for three years of training to enable him to compete internationally and he won a silver medal in 2010 and two bronze medals in 2011 and 2012 at the Skydiving World championships held in Russia, Germany and Dubai.

He has become one of the world’s best skydivers, competing in a dynamic sport where there is no para or disabled category.

Al, who now tours the world’s drop zones offering help and advice to other injured skydivers, was delighted with his nomination in the Against All Odds category.

“I hope that I can prove that someone like me, as severely injured as I am, can compete with able bodied people in a dynamic sport,” he said.

The Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons is now in its second year and was set up to honour the company's founder, Second World War hero Major Charles Holland. The finalists will be judged by a panel including Falklands war veteran Simon Weston and category winners will receive a trip to Italy.