Doctor gives dad £40,000 bionic leg.. for free

A one-legged dad who needed a £40,000 bionic limb so he could walk again was given one for FREE... when he popped into his local for a pint.

David Huckvale, 42, was sipping a beer when he was tapped on the shoulder by Alistair Gibson, one of only 10 doctors in the world who can fit the computer-controlled limb.

The surgeon could see David was struggling to stand and told him he had a spare leg lying under the desk in his surgery in America - and he could have it for nothing.

Sports-mad David was fitted with a false knee in his teens after a benign tumour was removed. But the knee joint kept breaking and eventually, when David was 29, doctors had to amputate his leg above the knee. David was devastated and had the op just weeks before he married Alison, now 37. He said: "I had to hobble down the aisle in a cast. I was heartbroken."

David, of Earlshilton, Leics, had to quit his job as a painter and decorator. The NHS fitted a false leg, but it didn't work properly, so he spent most of his time in pain on crutches or in a wheelchair. But then in 1998 he read about a bionic leg only available in America. The trouble was the limb would cost £40,000 - and after almost 10 years of saving David had just £3,000.

He said: "The NHS did what they could for me but I knew deep down the only way I would walk properly again would be to go to America.

"I saved like mad and bought a lottery ticket each week and prayed."

Then last September David's luck changed when he went down to his local The Sycamore for a drink.

David said: "I have been blessed by a miracle. I can now play in the garden with my two girls. Alistair has given me my life back."

Scots-born Alistair, who was on holiday visiting relatives, said: "I could see he was really struggling when I saw him in the pub. I thought he was such a nice guy... and I wanted to give something back to society."