INSPIRATIONAL Milford charity founder Dan Eley faces his greatest challenge yet on August 18, when he makes an historic trip to the scene of the diving accident in the Amazon jungle that left him paralysed in 2009.

Dan, who is wheelchair bound, will be joined on his epic trip by close friends Kevin McCaffrey and Terence O’Donnell who were with him at the scene six years ago and who saved his life. The plight of the charity worker touched a chord internationally and supporters raised £90,000 to fly him back to the UK by air ambulance for specialist treatment.

The eight-strong team of helpers accompanying Dan will include a nurse and the epic trip will be the subject of a BBC Inside Out documentary to be screened early next year. The documentary will also feature the work done by the Dan Eley Foundation in Cali. His charity has already helped 155 disadvantaged young Colombians turn their lives around.

The owner of the hostel where Dan and his friends originally stayed will guide them to the exact spot where he made the fateful dive that broke his neck.

“I’ve had a very powerful feeling I must do this for three years but I don’t know of anyone who has travelled into the jungle in a wheelchair,” he said. “I feel very strongly compelled to go there. It feels like I’m completing a circle.

“The accident happened on the second day of the jungle trip I had planned with my friends and we will also go to all the places we planned to go when I was able-bodied.”

For more details, visit daneleyfoundation.org.