Tokyo Paralympics: Swimmer Ibrahim Al Hussein's remarkable journey from war-torn Syria

[Animous]

It was dark as Ibrahim Al Hussein came to. He couldn't move and thick dust filled the air, blocking out all but a few small flames flickering close by. It was hard to breathe.

The shrill high-pitched ringing he could hear was broken by another person faintly crying out nearby. Then there was his leg. Something wasn't right and he could not feel his foot.

"In that moment, I didn't know if I was dead or alive," Al Hussein says now.

Seconds earlier he had dived to the ground to protect his friend, shot by a sniper from a nearby rooftop. It was 2012 and the Syrian war had broken out in the previous year.

His family had already fled their home in Deir al-Zor on the Euphrates river, but Al Hussein felt compelled to stay. Then 23, he feared he would be forced into the army if captured and refusal would have meant certain death.

Daily life was a trauma. Bombing had destroyed much of what he loved, while water and electricity were cut and no food supplies could enter the city.

Those who remained formed a brotherhood. Some days they felt like they were "trapped in graves" but they kept a community together. They would die for one another, but hoped they would not have to.

"As the smoke cleared I could just about make out people coming towards me," Al Hussein recalls. "They had heard the tank shell detonate and carried me away to safety."

Al Hussein's lower right leg had been blown away and metal shrapnel was embedded in his nose, cheek and arm. The blast had landed just a few feet away from the spot where he had dived to protect his friend, who survived.

With all public services ceased, a dentist had formed a makeshift medical facility in a tent where he could clean wounds and administer some pain relief.

But there was no time to rest and no possibility of recuperating here. Al Hussein knew the lifesaving medical treatment he needed for his leg was simply not available in Syria.

He and some friends hatched a plan to escape. They would try to reach neighbouring Turkey, to the north, and cross by river.

"We had to go at night because we knew the Syrian army were patrolling and the Turks would have armed forces too," he recalls. "We hoped the small boat would go unnoticed."

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With the help of fellow travellers, Al Hussein moved between three cities in southern Turkey as he desperately searched for the help he needed.

Most were able to apply fresh dressings for the wound, but antibiotics were in short supply, particularly when he had no money to pay for them.

"Treatment in Turkey wasn't good at all," Al Hussein says.

"One hospital gave me a prosthetic leg, but I had to carry tools with me as the screws would fall out on to the street every 100 metres.

"It also hurt when I wore it and it caused further infection because the metal materials tore through the skin and were touching the bone."

He decided to cross the country, hoping for better in Istanbul, but was left disappointed and became increasingly desperate.

"I knew that Europe was now my only option," he says. "People advised I go back to Izmir, south of the city, where smugglers could take me.

"It was scary going from square to square trying to find, and then negotiate, with smugglers."

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