When David Savage's daughter Belinda announced she was getting married, he promised to walk her down the aisle.
It was not an easy promise to make for the former war crimes investigator.
In 2012, he was almost killed by a 12-year-old suicide bomber while working for the Australian government's aid agency in Afghanistan.
He was left with a traumatic brain injury, and while he was recuperating in an Australian hospital, his right leg began to fail. He was soon unable to walk.
"I think I was in a bit of shock," Mr Savage told 7.30 of the time.
"I remember the nurse handover. This nurse came in and read my chart and it said that I was a paraplegic.
"And I was like, 'No, I'm not!' And then I thought, 'Oh, yes, I am.' It hadn't hit home, I guess.
"That was pretty devastating."
His world was turned upside down: After decades of working around the world as a federal police officer and a United Nations war crimes investigator, he suddenly found himself unable to work or walk.
His wife had to quit her job to become his full-time carer, and doctors told him his chances of rehabilitating his leg were vanishingly small.
"It's not to say that people who are in a wheelchair permanently can't have a great quality of life, but to be able to put my arm around my wife or pick up my granddaughter — it would be pretty amazing.
"For my health, physical and mental health, it would be pretty devastating to be in a chair the rest of my life."
'This will be life-changing'
Instead of accepting his fate — and despite the odds — Mr Savage decided that he would walk again.
Soon after that, he made the promise to his daughter.
"Even if I only walked 10 metres [down the aisle], that would have probably satisfied me," he said.
He began painstaking physiotherapy in Canberra, where he lived.
By 2020, despite years of work and trying numerous devices, he was still unable to take even a few steps. He was losing hope.
"He thought he was just never going to walk again," said physiotherapist Anne Freeman, who started working with him that year.
"He was very depressed — he just didn't see a way forward."
Ms Freeman suggested another option to Mr Savage — a German company, Ottobock, that makes high-tech computer-controlled leg braces called the C-Brace.
The brace works via microprocessors set above and below the knee joint. They sense where the leg is in space and then do the work that Mr Savage's leg muscles and nerves can no longer do.
It allows people to walk, sit, stand, climb and descend stairs, and even ride bicycles.
Mr Savage and Ms Freeman both agreed the C-Brace was his last chance — if it didn't work, he would have to accept he would not be able to fulfil his promise to his daughter. He would remain in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
After a few months, an Ottobock representative came to Australia to help fit the brace.
On the day Mr Savage was to trial the brace, the representative told him just how important the test was.
"It was quite nerve-wracking because they said, depending on your injury, you either can activate it or you can't — there's no sort of grey area," he said.
The representative said if Mr Savage could activate the brace he would hear a loud beeping coming from the microprocessors.
So they attached the brace to Mr Savage and he tried to make it work. There was no sound and Mr Savage saw the faces of the people around him fall.
Then the representative apologised and said he had forgotten to turn the sound on. Once he did, the beeping began.
"The [representative] just sort of put his arm around me and said, 'David, this will be life-changing,'" he said.
Within a week, Mr Savage was able to walk unassisted.
A month later, he walked almost a kilometre from his home to the local shops.
"I'll be definitely ready to walk Belinda down the aisle now — it's going to be a very proud, proud moment," he said.
He also expects to march unassisted in next year's Anzac Day March.
Mr Savage hopes his story might reach other people who do not know about the new types of technology enabling people to walk again.
"These are quite unique in Australia. I think I'm the seventh person to have one," he said.
"With this technology, someone who has a similar injury to me might see this story and learn that there is a possibility to change their life.
"If just one person sees this and it helps change their life, then it's worth doing this interview. To give people some light at the end of the tunnel."
