A man has married the nurse who cared for him after he was paralysed in a car crash that killed his friend.

Nick Packham, who will need a wheelchair for life, married Julie, who had nursed him for nine months in a spinal unit.

Mr Packham, 36, of Lambden Road, Pluckley, said: “I obviously had no idea this might happen when I met her but I knew straight away that she was a lovely, bubbly person.

“We ended up dating and eventually I popped the question when we went on a Caribbean cruise.”

Mrs Packham said: “I don’t even think of him of being in a wheelchair. It is no different to him sitting down and talking to me.

“Although I am his carer I am his wife first and foremost.”

Mr Packham, a retained firefighter, was paralysed from the chest down after a car crash in 2002, which killed driver Andrew Cruickshank.

He met Julie after he was transferred to the spinal unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The couple kept in touch and Julie eventually moved to Kent to live with him.

The couple married at St Nicholas Church, Pluckley, on Saturday, April 26.

Firefighters formed a guard of honour at the ceremony and prayers were said for Mr Cruickshank.

Full story in this week's Kentish Express