A WINSFORD mother has welcomed home her soldier son who escaped death after being shot in the chest in Afghanistan.

Heather Britton, of Carlisle Close, was spared heartbreak when the high velocity bullet was absorbed by son Daniel’s body armour.

For Private Britton, who was serving at an autere patrol base near Sangin, it was a relief just to reach his 22nd birthday after a few too many brushes with death this summer.

He was posted with The 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment in a remote base in Helmand Province, where his action-packed tour saw him battling to survive being washed away in a fast-flowing river, contracting dysentery, bullets brushing within inches of his head, working to save the life of a fatally injured colleague and being shot in the chest himself.

Thankfully, his body armour took the full impact of the round and, not for the first time, he miraculously walked away unscathed.

Daniel said: “"I look at everything that has happened to me and I don’t really think of it as bad or good luck. It’s just what happens here.

“It has been a very eventful tour and I know my family worry about me. “I was slightly worried about going home, it took a bit of readjustment to get used to running water and flushing toilets.”

Heather, 44, added: “He got back on October 6 and he’s been going back and forth between here and Belfast. I’m glad he’s home and he’s safe. I’m so proud of him.”

During the tour, Daniel lost three of his close pals to improvised explosive devices.

He said: “It isn’t easy. They were good guys and on each occasion I was there. I helped the medic to keep one of them alive, by giving him CPR, but it wasn’t enough and he died.”

Then just a week before his birthday he was shot himself while covering a patrol from a rooftop.

He said: “The first I knew of the Taliban presence was when I was thrown back with massive force.

"It was like a sledgehammer hitting my chest. I knew straight away I’d been hit but I wasn’t quite sure with what.

"I could feel liquid on my skin and I was convinced it was blood.

"I immediately returned fire before one of the guys pulled me off the rooftop and checked me over.

“I had a high velocity round embedded in the chest plate of my body armour and I was just sweating, not bleeding.”