Paralympian wants to thank crash driver 44 years after accident took his leg

A man who lost his leg after being hit by a car as a 10-year-old has said he wants to thank the driver for changing his life "for the better".

Mark Williams went on to become a world champion swimmer and won a silver medal at the 1988 Seoul Paralympics before setting up his own company.

He said the unknown driver of the car that hit him as he cycled home in June 1982 might now be in his 80s and could be "traumatised" by what happened, but wanted him to know that "amazing things" had happened to him as a result.

"My biggest fear is that he doesn't know my story. I just want him to send me a message, just get in contact," he said.

Mark was 10 years old and cycling home from school on the day Prince William was born on 21 June 1982, when the crash happened.

"I had just passed my cycling proficiency. I got top marks - I was the safest rider," he said.

"I had the certificate in my rucksack and I was riding home to show it to my mum and dad."

He cannot remember the crash at a busy junction in Rhyl, Denbighshire, but knows a friend from school cycled to his parents' house to tell them.

His dad, a caravan repairman, and his older brother ran half a mile and arrived just as Mark was being loaded into an ambulance.

He was taken to hospital where a surgeon told his parents Prince Charles and Princess Diana had just had baby boy - before breaking the news that Mark had gangrene in his leg.

His parents were told that if his leg was not amputated, he would "die in the next few hours".

Mark said, in a sign of attitudes to disability at the time, his parents took time deciding if they should sign the paperwork giving permission for the operation.

When Mark woke up in intensive care a couple of days later, there was "a lump where the right leg was and no lump where the left leg was".

The driver, a man in his 30s, stayed at the scene of the crash and came to the hospital days later to ask staff how Mark was.