Archie Veale has come a very long way in an extremely short time.

Three years ago, the Colby teenager was fighting for his life after developing septicaemia. Today, the 19-year-old is embarking on a course - chosen because of his ordeal - at the University of Salford.

Archie said: ’I wouldn’t change what’s happened to me but I’ve had this experience and I want to take something positive out of it and help improve the quality of other people’s lives.

’I knew from my personal experience and from meeting amputees that this was what I wanted to learn about.

’Coming to study prosthetics and orthotics at the University of Salford is the best move I’ve ever made - people are so supportive and it’s just perfect here for me.’

In 2014, critically ill and suffering from multiple organ failure, he was airlifted to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, where he stayed for five months. For two weeks he was in an induced coma.

A special device called an Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine was used to do the work of his heart, doctors had to carry out an emergency procedure to save his leg, and a tracheostomy had to be performed enabling him to breathe through a tube inserted in his neck.

Following the illness, Archie was left with a bilateral neuropathy and myopathy and still uses crutches to get about.

He missed a whole academic year but went back to Castle Rushen High School to pass three A-levels.

While studying for A-levels he was drawn to help others who had been through similar ordeals and coached at his local wheelchair sports club, coming into contact with amputees from children who had lost limbs due to illness to military veterans who had suffered trauma on the battlefield.

Archie said this - as well as his experience of the medics who helped him - made him choose the course.

He said: ’After being in hospital care for so long I idolised all the doctors, nurses and physiotherapists I met.

’I just thought: "why shouldn’t I do that for other people?"’

To improve his walking while at university, in the summer an appeal was made for funds to buy a Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) Unit, a specialist system that applies small electrical charges to the leg.

The Dream Catcher Appeal raised more than 50% of the £3,240 for the unit in a month and the Rotary Club of Douglas Charitable Trust, as trustees of the Lockington Marshall Trust, donated the balance.

Archie is already noticing big changes wearing the FES: ’My body now has adapted to it and responds to the stimulation it gives very well and I feel my progress is still moving forwards despite having no one-to-one physiotherapy sessions whilst I am here.

’I have also noticed a difference when I am not wearing the FES in that my feeling in my left leg and the mobility of my ankle and foot are improving at a relatively fast rate in comparison to previous months.’

Gilly Mehraban from the university’s School of Health Science said: ’For Archie to have gone through this experience and turn it into something positive is an inspiration to all of us, and it’s a real asset to have him here studying with us.’