In the bloody, shocking moments after his legs and arm were blown off by a Taliban landmine, Mark Ormrod begged a friend to put a bullet in his head.

For a few agonising split seconds as the choking dust and debris settled, the superfit Westcountry-based Royal Marine saw what he believed was his inevitable future and wanted no part of it.

"I was lying naked and dying in the desert," he said.

"I just thought I can't live like this.

"I turned to the corporal and shouted 'stick a bullet through my head'. I was serious.

"I remember lying there thinking that I would feel like someone had punched me in the back of the head and then it would go black and it would be OK."

The catastrophic injuries he suffered on Christmas Eve 2007 changed his life forever.

But the surprise is that the Plymouth-born 28-year-old is not bitter. In fact he firmly believes he is a better person for having suffered and triumphed.

And at the heart of this are his twin loves: wife Becky, whose hand in marriage was secured with a dry, rasping proposal when he first recovered consciousness in hospital, and his bouncing 14-week-old baby son, Mason.

"I think everything happens for a reason," said Mark.

"If I had died that day, then Mason wouldn't be here.

"Before I was blown up, my life was pretty rubbish. When I was on leave I would stay out all night and sleep on my mates' sofas.

"I used to be a lot more selfish. I was a different person.

"Since this all happened I am more positive.

"My face is OK and my pecker is OK," which is said with a broad smile and a nod at slumbering Mason.

"I've not got any internal injuries. I think I've got the best of a bad situation."

When asked if his experience had made him a better Mark Ormrod, there is no hesitation.

"Yes."

For many injured on the front line, memories of the critical incident may be little more than hazy, semi-conscious snapshots.

But Mark can remember it all.

On that day, as a Royal Marine with Taunton-based 40 Commando, he was second in command of a patrol circling their remote Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Helmand province.

After nearly three hours out in the badlands, they regrouped a couple of hundred feet from the main gate and scrutinised the path ahead.

"We were ready to go back," he said.

"I was in a bit of a hollow and I had my three guys looking out and where I needed them.

"Then I knelt on this thing and it went off.

"When I detonated the IED [improvised explosive device], all the sand and shingle was blown up and created a sandstorm.

"Initially I had no idea what I had done. I thought we had been hit by a mortar.

"I knew that if that was the case the only place it could have come from was behind us.

"I couldn't see anything and my first thought was to turn around and start firing."

Suddenly the truth behind the dust and shingle became apparent.

"When I tried to turn around I couldn't," Mr Ormrod said.

"My brain felt like it was hitting the walls of my skull.

"I went into a dream-like state, where I knew something was happening but it just didn't feel real.

"I could feel the chin strap of my helmet under my nose because it had been blown upwards.

"I looked to one side and I could see my body armour had been blown off and was lying on the ground.

"I looked at one of the lads and I could see he was in shock.

"Then I looked down and I knew it was bad.

"I realised what had happened and I started flashing and screaming."

With his clothes incinerated by the blast and having obtained a quick, clear picture of his terrible injuries, the injured Marine then turned to a friend and asked him to kill him.

But by this point, the rescue effort was under way.

The call "man down" had been quickly dispatched and a medic was rushed out from the base just a few minutes away.

Lifesaving tourniquets were applied to his limbs and, despite the blood loss, Mark was able to take in the scene unfolding around him.

He can recall being lifted on to a vehicle and even trying to reach after a man who fell out when it suddenly accelerated.

"Even then I wasn't in much pain.

"I can remember getting into the FOB and hearing the noise of the helicopter coming in, feeling the downdraft as it landed and the last thing I can remember is the noise of the tailgate being lowered.

"Four days later I woke up in hospital."

The explosion had left a crater 16 feet wide and in a heartbeat reduced his 16 stone bulk to just nine-and-a-half.

Back at Birmingham's Selly Oak Hospital, where all wounded servicemen are treated, Mark began his long road to recovery.

It was painful and slow, not least because he was the first triple amputee from Afghanistan who had survived their injuries.

"I was a bit of a crash test dummy in a way," he said.

"They didn't know how a triple amputee could use prosthetic legs when he only had one arm, or how a triple amputee could drive a car or have their house adapted.

"At times I found it annoying, but because of what I did they now have a better idea for other people who have been injured.

"Things that took me six months to do are taking other people just a few months because we did all the testing."

There was doubt about what Mark could accomplish, but that was reckoning without his fiercely competitive spirit and determination to succeed.

At first, simply sitting up in bed took 90 minutes of sheer, grit-your-teeth hard work.

And though he was delighted to be able to get out of bed and scoot around under his own steam, being in a wheelchair was his darkest hour.

"I hated being in the wheelchair," he said.

"People will just blank you out. They don't see you and they don't realise they're doing it."

There were many moments when stoicism gave way to bitter tears cried for the life he had lost. The instance that shines out was an evening when he was unable to manoeuvre the wheelchair into a flat where his family were staying.

"I had to sit in the corridor and eat my food like a naughty schoolboy. I hated it."

The despised wheelchair has been consigned to the shed of his home in Plymstock, as indeed have the "blades" which were his first set of prosthetic legs.

It's almost with a sense of pride that he sports shorts which show off his hi-tech prosthetics.

"To be honest it's just easier to wear shorts, but I don't have a problem with my legs," he said.

"I know some people stare and kids in particular stare, but I just laugh it off."

Now out of uniform, having left a desk job with the Royal Marines, the future is looking rosy.

Mark is working for the Royal Marines Association, a charitable group where he can support former servicemen in exactly the same way he has been helped.

He also has a quite staggering list of goals that he sets himself every Christmas.

Topping this year's is the challenge of cycling nearly 3,000 miles round the British coastline.

The event – Tour de Forces – will raise money for four military charities and sets off from Plymouth for the anti-clockwise circumnavigation.

It's hugely ambitious, but Mark would say no more so than some of the other things he's done – such as an eight-week trek across America in 2010.

He even hopes to go back to Afghanistan one day: "I would like to go back, just out of interest. I don't think I will freak out and have flashbacks because I saw it all and remember what happened."

He is also keen to get a motorbike – although the subject is obviously something of a sore one with his 25-year-old wife, who narrows her eyes and shakes her head at this suggestion.

She is, nonetheless, exceptionally proud of her man for his bravery and determination.

"He is a stronger person for all of this," said Becky. "I'm so proud of him to have had the worst thrown at him and to overcome it like he has."

There is no false modesty with Mark – he understands the scale of his achievements, but he knows he can do even more.

"I have to look forward and not back.

"According to the medic, I died in the back of the helicopter in Afghanistan.

"Now I know that life is short and if there's something I want to do I just get on and do it.

"There's no point beating myself up about things. It happened and I've just got to get on with life."