A former army athlete whose military career ended after he was hurt in a pole vaulting accident, is back on track with a place in Team UK for the Invictus Games later this year.

Peter Saunders, 28, was part of the army athletics team in 2016 when he suffered a brain injury falling from the top of the pole, missing the mat and landing on his head. “I was upside down in the air, no pole, I don’t know what happened, but I completely missed the mat,” he said.

The cyber engineer with 21 Signal Regt, who has only been in the military for 18 months and was still training at Blandford, woke up a few days later in Dorchester Hospital. He’d suffered a bleed on the brain.

“I got sent home on sick leave for five weeks with nothing but painkillers. I was untreated until March 2017 when I got a new doctor at Blandford who immediately sent me to Headley Court – the military rehabilitation centre at the time.

“I didn’t really know why I was there, but I was sent to the mild brain injury clinic and within half an hour I was told I needed to go up a level to a more serious department. I ended up in a neuro-ward for 16 weeks.”

It was a worrying time, not just because of the injury itself.

“I also had a three-month-old baby when I was first injured, and was worried about him, as well as worrying about things like bills if I were to be discharged.

“Because I was still in training, I had to be on site, and couldn’t go home. That was really hard as I got really inside my own head, with nothing to do really for 16 weeks.”

“I wasted my time at Headley Court. I had personal occupational health staff, my own physiotherapist, social worker - if you need them, they’re there. But I just didn’t utilise it, all I wanted to do during that time was to convince everyone that I was fully fit, so I could finish my training and be posted out. I just lied all the time.”

Desperate to finish his training and take part in exercises and deployments, Peter insisted that he was fully fit. It was only later on exercise in Oman that the truth came out.

“By the Army’s standards, I was fully fit – because I told them that I was. I was first posted into my first unit in January 2018. I spent the first-year sort of ploughing on and it wasn’t great. Everyone in the Signals knew what happened, and I was a bit of an outsider.

He explained: “Usually, the people you train with are the people you get posted with. I didn’t have anyone I knew, and people just knew me as that guy who got injured doing the pole-vault. I became an outsider, but I tried to just turn up and work as hard as I could.”

“In August I went to Oman on Exercise which is when the wheels came off. That’s when I realised that I wasn’t as fully fit as I pretended to be. The exercise was designed to simulate an operational tour, living in tents in the desert, eating rations, long days and long shifts. One of the things I experience as a result of my injury is fatigue, I need a lot of sleep, and I just wasn’t getting it on exercise, so I started making a lot of mistakes, including losing my passport, probably down to memory problems.

“When I got back, the first thing I did was book an appointment with the medical centre and told them I wasn’t okay.

“I was handed a slip of paper with what I should and shouldn’t do with a brain injury in six and 12 months-post injury. Everything on the list of what I shouldn’t have done, I’d done.”

Peter, from Trowbridge was sent back to Headley Court where he struggled to fit in. He couldn’t do guard duty and was downgraded. But he battled on. At the start of 2020 he was finally given the go ahead to go on exercise.

“We were literally in camp, on the minibus on the way to exercise, and then the first lockdown hit. So we all had to go home. In my eyes that was going to be the big resurgence of my career, but we were told just to go home and I lost what I’d been working so hard towards.”

Eventually he found a posting in Tidworth as part of the engagement team, going into schools and promoting the army.

“I loved it, absolutely loved it. For the first time in my whole career, I was valued. When the six months came to an end, there was an option to do it for two years, but instead of granting me that, I was medically discharged. I’d spent all this time grafting away to find somewhere I was valued. I finally found somewhere, and I was let go.”

He said: “It affected me massively. I went to some dark places, and there was always this feeling that I didn’t have a right to be upset. I told myself that I got injured in a novelty accident, where other people had been blown up and lost a limb. I was embarrassed to feel upset because other people had it worse, and I told myself to get over it.”

Peter underwent cognitive behavioural therapy and eventually found himself in a better place. He also got a new job as a community fundraiser for the Royal British Legion.

He also got back into sports and was shocked to find out he’d been selected for Team UK to compete in sitting volleyball and archery, although he’s currently trying to get over an Achilles tendon injury.

Six years into his recovery journey, he wants to speak to those who still have a long way to go. “No one spoke to me at the beginning to say what it’s like a few years down the line, but being able to do that and be that for someone else will be such an honour.”

He added: “There was a time when I wanted to win my competition, but now that I’ve been injured in my ankle, I’ve realised that it’s just not about winning. I want to get back into sport, but not for winning, instead for establishing a new me.

“I’m there to compete, and try, and grow, and meet all these other people.”

“Beyond the Games, I would absolutely love to come back and coach. I used to be a decathlete, I competed for the army in multiple events, I’m sure I can coach.”

The games are in Dusseldorf in September. Find out more about about Team UK at britishlegion.org.uk