A MAN who twice cheated death is taking part in a charity run to give a young girl a better chance in life.

Peter Baxter will join thousands of other competitors in the Great North Run on Sunday, September 21, to help a ten-year-old girl who has a severe form of childhood arthritis.

Not having the strength to run the full distance, the 50-year-old from Teesside will both run and walk.

Friends and relatives said it was a miracle that the business development manager was alive to take part in the event.

Mr Baxter spent weeks in a hospital's intensive care unit after he suddenly developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, which affects nerves in the arms and legs and can cause paralysis, only to develop bowel cancer three weeks after his return to work.

The cancer is now in remission and Mr Baxter, from Norton, Stockton, said: "I was on chemotherapy for a further six months because it was also in my lymph glands. It was a very bad time, I would not wish it on anyone."

Mr Baxter said he had set his sights on helping Emma Doree, from Ingleby Barwick, and that helped him through some of the tough times.

Emma, who is nine, has Systemic Juvenile Chronic Arthritis, which means she suffers with painful swelling and inflammation in her joints.

The condition was diagnosed when she was only four.

Mr Baxter said: "I have always been aware of people worse off than yourself, and this was a good challenge for me; something to aim for.

"I have been walking quite a lot to build up my stamina."

Members at Bannatyne's gymnasium, in Ingleby Barwick, where he was a regular, have signed up to take part in the run on behalf of the Arthritis Research Campaign with him.