A fireman told today how he cheated death in a paragliding accident only for a scan to reveal he has terminal cancer.

Steve Phillips is now under going a clinical trial at Southampton General Hospital for the illness.

He was about to become a father when his paraglider collapsed and he fell 40ft at the White Horse in Osmington, Dorset, on July 31 last year.

He landed on his back as his heavily pregnant partner Becky Taylor watched in horror.

"If I had fallen in any other way than flat on my back I would have broken something or could have been in a wheelchair by now or worse," said Mr Phillips.

The 42-year-old watch manager at Weymouth Fire Station in Dorset went to hospital for X-rays which came back clear.

"In the X-rays there must have been something they didn't like, some sort of shadow," said Mr Phillips.

A scan spotted a tumour in his stomach and doctors broke the news that he had terminal lymphatic cancer throughout his body.

Doctors have told him there is no cure and that he has between five and eight years to live.

He is undergoing a two-year clinical trial at Southampton General Hospital, using antibodies to shrink the tumours.

The tumours will grow back and he will eventually need chemotherapy.

His daughter Isabella was born four days after the accident and Mr Phillips, from Broadwey in Weymouth, was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma within two weeks.

"It is absolutely horrendous," he said. "You initially think that's it, I have been given a death sentence, I am going to die."

He took part in a free Macmillan Cancer Care six-week course, Living with Cancer, to help him cope.

"At the moment I am not showing any typical symptoms of the disease.

"I'm fit. I still go running, do weights and work. I needed to go back to work, I needed the camaraderie of the guys on the watch.

"The biggest difficulty is psychological. I have always wanted children. I got divorced two years ago and that was one of the issues.

"I met Becky quite soon afterwards and had a baby and that's what I live for. To think I won't see her on her 18th or 21st is really a mind blowing thing."

Mr Phillips plans to train in Bath so that he can tutor a Macmillan Cancer Care course to help others cope with a terminal illness starting in Dorchester next month.