Wheelchair-bound Chris Cairns on surviving spinal stroke: I'm very lucky to be alive

Chris Cairns is recovering from a spinal stroke that left him paralysed waist down, after he had undergone a life-saving emergency heart surgery.

Former New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns said that he doesn't know if he can walk or stand up again but he is "very lucky to be alive" three months after a medical emergency left him on life support. Cairns, 51, is bound to a wheelchair and is recovering from a spinal stroke that left him paralysed waist down.

"We don't know what happens going forward. I don't know if I'll walk, I don't know if I'll stand. But I may stand. I may walk. The only option is to keep going. The thing is, I'm not even just lucky to be (alive). I'm very lucky," Cairns was quoted as saying by Canberra Times.