A war hero left traumatised by a terrifying emergency landing is flying high after hypnosis cured his crippling fear of planes.
After suffering panic attacks every time he stepped foot on an aircraft, Paul Maclean now can’t wait to get strapped in after just one hypnotherapy session.
Paul, 40, who served in the Iraq War, was used to flying around the world while serving as a signaller in the army.
But his life changed following a frightening ordeal on board a military plane in India 20 years ago.
The dad-of-six, from Nuneaton, Warks., said: “I never flew anywhere when I was younger and only went on holiday in Scotland and England.
After suffering panic attacks every time he stepped foot on an aircraft, Paul Maclean now can’t wait to get strapped in after just one hypnotherapy session.
Paul, 40, who served in the Iraq War, was used to flying around the world while serving as a signaller in the army.
But his life changed following a frightening ordeal on board a military plane in India 20 years ago.
The dad-of-six, from Nuneaton, Warks., said: “I never flew anywhere when I was younger and only went on holiday in Scotland and England.
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FunTranscript
00:00Hi I'm Paul from Runeaton and I'm here to tell you my story about my fear of flying.
00:05I joined the army back in 2002. My first flight was to Canada. We went through some thunderstorms
00:12and that and it was okay. I didn't really enjoy it but it was okay. My real fear of flying started
00:16when we went to India and I was sitting on the aisle seat next to the wing. The loader came up
00:23to the side of us and looked out the window and I said everything okay and he said yeah it's okay.
00:28So anyway they went back to the captain and came over the tannoy saying that we need to do an
00:34emergency landing. I was like oh my god. In the process of that we sort of started off here and
00:39we sort of dived like that spiraled all the way down and all I could see out of the window was
00:45water and I was thinking this is not going to end well. Anyway as we got sort of it seemed about 20
00:51feet off the ground but it was obviously higher than that we sort of levelled off and landed
00:54straight away so we had to do the emergency landing in Bulgaria. It took about probably nine
01:00ten hours to fix the fuel leak and once it was fixed we got back on the plane. I jokingly said
01:06are we going to make it home safely and they said yeah no problems. 20 or 30 seconds into the flight
01:13and basically it just went bang and the whole plane shuddered and then it went bang bang and
01:19the whole plane shuddered again and I looked around at everyone and it was like
01:23the life dropped over them. I held on to the front of the seat that was it I was praying to god I was
01:29thinking oh my god are we going to make it back home but the captain came on over the tannoy and
01:34says ladies and gentlemen we've just had an engine blowback it normally we normally get one a year
01:39but we've just had three nothing to worry about. I was like please god please god get me home get me
01:44home. Anyway ever since that experience I've detested flying. My partner Anna had some friends
01:56who went to see David and obviously for different reasons but they were all successful so Anna
02:03reached out to David he got in contact with me and basically says yep I can help you not a problem
02:11we'll book you in for one session. Obviously I was sceptical about it and you hear different
02:16things but this was sort of a last resort for me. I went over and met him he was really relaxed
02:23and sat down he talked through different coping mechanisms to get on the plane and whatnot
02:29and then he went into the hypnosis side of it. I was really really relaxed after it it was a
02:34really good feeling but afterwards he sort of walked me out to the car and that he says how
02:40how do you feel? I said I feel amazing I really do so I can't recommend David enough it was sort
02:47of a last resort for me but yeah us men don't really talk about things and fears and stuff like that
02:54and and he sort of gets that out of you so 100% recommend it. Basically cured me from my fear of
03:00flying. I got on a flight on the 28th of October to Iceland my partner said it was like a different
03:07person I was actually like a normal a normal passenger. I looked outside of the the plane
03:13which I'd never done before and I went to the toilet twice as well and that seems like the
03:19normal thing but for me that was that just never happened and we're looking to go on other flights
03:25in the future as well.