When Grant Archard's parachute became tangled in an Australian Army exercise, he plummeted 300 metres and landed flat on his back.
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The jump should have been a 50-second descent, but he hit the ground at high speed after only 12 seconds in the air.
Mr Archard, of Medowie, fractured three vertebrae in the accident, which happened at Singleton in a "static-line parachute exercise".
"You jump out the door and the parachute gets deployed. The person behind me got tangled in my main parachute. Then we descended under his reserve parachute," Mr Archard, now 42, said.
"I remember hitting the ground and thinking I was going to die. I was winded, but at that point I wasn't in any pain because of the adrenaline."
Half an hour later in an army ambulance, the adrenaline wore off.
While being treated in an army hospital, he said "the pain was horrible".
In the years since, Mr Archard struggled with debilitating chronic back pain, bulging discs in his lower back, PTSD and severe mental health issues linked to the pain.
To treat the pain, he wore a back brace, saw dozens of specialists, took pain management courses and had spinal injections.
He became dependent on pain medication to function, before realising the drugs weren't the answer.
"It becomes a vicious cycle," he said.
He turned to a restorative neurostimulation device, which research has shown can improve the lives of people like Mr Archard.
Dr Marc Russo, director of Hunter Pain Specialists, implanted the device in Mr Archard at Newcastle Private Hospital in August last year.
Dr Russo said the treatment aimed to "not simply block pain, but restore function".
"It brings back online muscles that are not contracting the way they should be," Dr Russo said.
"We put a tiny electrode over the nerve to the muscle and connect that to a tiny battery, all of which goes underneath the skin as an implant."
The patient has a remote control to switch on the device twice a day, which contracts the muscle for 30 minutes each time.
"If we can get the muscle carrying some of the weight of the spine, as it's designed to do, then three out of four people get improved pain and functional capacity," Dr Russo said.
"For one out of four it doesn't make a major difference, only a minor difference."
Mr Archard said he started to notice a reduction in pain after four to six months.
"Between six and 12 months, I noticed more pain reduction. My pain has reduced by about 20 per cent, but my functional capacity has improved 100 per cent."
In May, he finished his first Ironman triathlon.
"The biggest thing is the everyday stuff. I'm able to drive my kids to school, mow the lawn and do stuff around the house," he said.
Dr Russo, who has implanted many patients with the device, said "when Grant first walked through my door, he couldn't walk far".
"Before the implant, he said if this works I'll run a triathlon. I didn't believe him, but he did.
"It's testimony that the human body can recover even from the most serious of injuries. Sometimes it needs a helping hand to get the system back on track."
University of Newcastle Professor Brett Graham, a pain researcher, said restorative neurostimulation was "certainly a valid intervention".
"It's an intervention of last resort. For a patient to be eligible for this type of therapy, they need to have gone through all the drug and psychological options to try to reduce the level of pain they're experiencing," Professor Graham said.
Mr Archard said he was "just an average guy".
"I don't see what I've done as anything special, but if it can inspire someone to get the help they need for their physical or mental health or take on a challenge like Ironman then that makes me happy."
