London, Jul 2 (ANI): When Oz man Nick Vujicic was born without arms or legs, his own parents could not bare to look at him or even hold him.

His own father left the hospital room to vomit, and his distraught mother didn’t hold him until he was four months old.

“My mother was a nurse and she did everything right during pregnancy but she still blamed herself,” the Sun quoted him as saying.

But for the 26-year-old, who tried to commit suicide by drowning himself in the bath at age 10, giving up on life was not something he wanted and has embraced it fully with the help of his family and friends.

Vujicic, from Melbourne, enjoys everything other lads his age do – playing football, swimming, and surfing, and while doctors know the condition is caused by a rare occurrence called Phocomelia, not much else is known about why it happened to him.

But from an early age, Nick was determined to make his life better.

“It was so hard for them but right from the start they did their best to make me independent,” he recalled.

“My dad put me in the water at 18 months and gave the courage to learn how to swim.

“I also got really into football and skateboarding. I totally love the English Premier League,” he said.

Although the majority of his body is torso, he has a small foot at the bottom of one hip, which helps him in everyday life.

Determined Nick uses it to type, hold a pen to write and pick things up between his toes.

His father was a computer programmer who taught him how to type with his toe aged just six. ujicic started feeling encouraged about life at the age of 13, after he read a newspaper article about a disabled man.

“I was 13 and read a newspaper article about a disabled man who had managed to achieve great things and help others,” he said.

The footie fan is now a motivational speaker, and has travelled to over 24 countries speaking to roups of up to 110,000 people.

“I realised why God had made us like this – to give hope to others. It was so inspirational to me that I decided to use my life to encourage other people and give them the courage that the article had given me,” he said.

“I decided to be thankful for what I do have, not get angry about what I don’t. “I looked at myself in the mirror and said: ‘You know what the world is right that I have no arms or legs, but they’ll never take away the beauty of my eyes’.

“I wanted to concentrate on something good that I had,” he added. (ANI)