A MAN who lost a leg after an accident at work has scooped more than £40,000 from a 60p scratch card.

Simon Rowland had to have his left leg amputated and sustained a brain injury after being run over by a forklift truck at Eagle Park Industrial Estate off Hawley's Lane in Dallam.

The 44-year-old has not worked since the accident, but now hopes that netting a £44,000 jackpot will change his life.

High Legh resident Simon said: “At first I didn’t believe it - I ran upstairs and woke the wife up who confirmed that I’d got the numbers right.

“I’d probably only joined a couple of weeks before my win and the money has changed our whole lives.

"I've never really been a gambling person but you've got to be in it to win it I guess."

Having got remarried in June last year, the Foxy Bingo online scratch card win will help Simon to provide for 18-month-old twin babies Abigail and Lucas.

He scored the big prize on the weekend of St Patrick's Day.

Simon, of Woodlands Crescent, added: "A 60p scratch card can change your world - it must have been the luck of the Irish.

“I’ve had a torrid time over the last five years.

“I was in a coma for six weeks then I lost my leg in 2014 - they tried to save it but they couldn’t and had to amputate.

“I’d been married for 21 years and my wife left me three weeks after I had my leg amputated and left me with all the kids, which was a struggle.

“But I met my new partner and we’ve recently got married and had kids together - she's my guiding light."

Simon, who has three sons, four daughters and one granddaughter, has invested in a catering van ,selling crepes and milkshakes alongside the usual burgers and hot dogs, to allow him to work again for the first time since his accident.

Next month he will also take the whole family on a dream trip to Florida.

Simon, who has played as a midfielder for the Manchester City amputees football team for the last two years in a bid to recover from his accident, added: “We’ve not really had any family holidays outside of the UK since my accident, so we’re going to have a big family holiday.

“It’s the holiday of a lifetime that we’d have never been able to have if I hadn’t won.

“I’ve also invested in the van because I like cooking and it’s something that won’t be too strenuous on me.

“We’re going to have all sorts of stuff that other burger vans don’t do just to make us that little bit different.

“It’s something that I’d never have been able to afford but obviously now we’ve won the money."