It was not much to ask but to Matthew Warnes it meant more than anything.

As the nurse pushed him down the hospital corridor in his wheelchair, he wanted to see the outside world.

"I used to ask her to push me slowly just so that I could see daylight," he said. "I had spent so long in hospital that I had forgotten what it was like."

Matthew spent two years in a hospital bed after suffering horrific burns and losing his legs in a car crash on the A556 nearly five years ago.

On Friday, speaking from his home in Hallside Park, he told how he now holds the record for being the person to spend the second longest time in hospital.

"It feels like home now whenever I go back," he said. "After you spend so long in one place and become confined to its surroundings you really begin to crave things.

"When they were wheeling me on a trolley to theatre one day I remember asking them to stop because I wanted to hear the rain outside. I had forgotten what it sounded like."

But Matthew, now 27, likes to remember the good things about his time in hospital, including the 200 members of staff who helped him on the road to recovery.

His is a remarkable story of determination, courage and faith.

"People who have tragedies have to focus to be able to put their pain behind them," said Matthew.

"I realise now that I don't need to climb Everest any more I just need to learn to walk."

The past five years have been a mixture of highs and lows, but Matthew has always been determined to live as normal a life as possible.

Almost 15 months after the crash he turned up at a fund-raising event held in his honour - surprising even his mum.

Family and friends had all assumed he would be too ill to leave his hospital bed.

Matthew had spent three months in intensive care, endured five major skin grafts and lost both legs.

Only his face and hands had escaped the flames in the crash.

Matthew needed such extensive skin grafts that his dad, Charles, and uncle donated skin. Artificial skin was also flown over from America for one operation. The burns were so deep that there was no skin left on his back, left arm, chest or buttocks. He also lost huge amounts of blood.

But now - three months before the five-year anniversary of the crash - he is learning to walk again.

Pressure

"The biggest relief I have felt since walking is from the pressure I feel all day everyday as everything I do has pressure," he said.

"Everyone has a little pressure on their feet but they can take the weight off them.

"I cannot because I spend all day sitting down."

After the accident he lived with his parents.

Then 18 months ago he decided to move out.

"I felt I needed space to breath and although it was hard for everyone I wanted to do it as I needed to break away to learn about life again," he said. "But when I moved out my life went downhill and I became depressed.

"There were moments and times when I woke up and thought I want to be dead and I hit the bottle.

"When my mum and dad phoned me, I used to tell them that I was fine and that I was planning lots for the day ahead.

"But when I got off of the phone I would just have a drink."

Today he feels he has found a new purpose in life.

"I just woke up to things in 2002 and this is the year that everything has happened for me," said Matthew, who has a full-time nurse, Kate.

He hopes to settle his claim for compensation this summer, but believes the crash has made him a better person.

"Things that used to be important to me like fast cars, money and having a house are not any more," said Matthew, a former head boy who had travelled the world, owned a BMW and a house by the time he was 21.

"There is nothing easy about being disabled. The first time that I tried to walk it really made me think that we should all never take things for granted no matter how small. When you have lost something then no amount of money can bring it back.

"But I want to thank everyone who has helped me in some way - even down to the man who incinerated my legs."