A paraglider who cheated life after a freak accident in South America has spoken about his holiday nightmare.

Rowan Humphreys, 45, broke his back when he fell from the equivalent height of a four-storey block of flats when his glider collapsed after being buffeted by a rogue wind.

He fractured his spine in five places and suffered internal injuries but has miraculously escaped being paralysed.

Mr Humphreys' nightmare began on a dream world tour with a group of friends. They planned to spend eight months flying in Chile, Peru, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the Far East.

The accident happened on the first leg of their trip in Iququi, in the foothills of the Andes.

Mr Humphreys said: "We were going to fly from 500 feet and were waiting for wind. None came so we decided to call it a day and glide down to the vehicles. I set off first and all was well until a freak wind collapsed my wing.

"I was about 40 or 50 feet from the ground and could do nothing. If I had been higher, my chute may have had time to recover but as it was I just came to earth with a sickening thud."

Mr Humphreys, of Canute Road, Hastings, lay motionless on the ground as his friends raced to his aid and alerted the Chilean emergency services.

He said: "I was in terrible pain but just lay still and waited for the paramedics to arrive."

But the drama was to continue. First, the ambulance driver refused to drive into the desert for fear of sinking in the sand.

Then a 4x4, sent to rescue him, blew a gasket and a second jeep got bogged down in the sand. In the end, his friends had to carry him more than 1000m to the ambulance.

It took two and a half hours to get Mr Humphreys to hospital.

He said: "If I hadn't been in so much pain, it would have been very funny."

Eventually he was taken to a small local hospital where he was strapped to a bed for ten days. He lost a stone in weight before his insurance company payed £15,000 to charter an air ambulance to take him to a top clinic in Santiago for treatment.

Mr Humphreys' family had no idea he was in hospital until they were alerted by the insurance company.

He finally managed to contact them on a mobile phone to tell them he was alive and well.

After a week in the clinic, he was flown home and is now facing up to the prospect that he might not be able to work again.

He said: "I used to restore old properties and do all the building work myself. The surgeons say that although my bones will heal, the tissues may take much longer and that I should lift nothing. So I may have to give up work."

However, Mr Humphreys is confident he will fly again. He has been paragliding for four years and says it is a major part of his life.

He said: "It will take time but I must get back in the air. I didn't get to complete my dream trip and I want to fly in all those places in the future."