Sergeant
Rick Clement
I served in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in April 2010, with the 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. It was my first tour to Afghanistan, and I was actually quite looking forward to it. I was worried about my lads and whether they would be all right but I didn’t really worry about myself. I wanted to go there, that’s what I had trained for. I like to think that we were in a job where we would make a difference, and going somewhere like Afghanistan is where we can do that. There were two parts to our role. Firstly, we would disrupt the Taliban from their training and from carrying out Operations in that area. And secondly—and this was a very prominent part of our role—we would help out the local communities, teaching and educating them.
It was only about a month into the tour when I was injured. It was a normal morning, and we were going out on patrol first thing. We were in two teams: the Commander was going to take a team onto the road outside our Patrol Base, and he was going to stop vehicles and people and ask questions to learn a bit about the area and see what kind of stuff was going on. I was going to take another team out to satellite around as cover in case anything happened to the team on the road. It was very close to summer time out there, so it was warm. We pushed out as normal, and I was the third man back in the patrol. We had the guy with the metal detectors at the front, a guy covering him and then I always like to lead as near to the front as I can, so I was the next man. But the Taliban had started using low-metal-content and no- metal-content IEDs, which weren’t picked up by the metal detectors. By pure luck, or fate, or whatever you believe in, I was the guy that stepped on the actual pressure plate and triggered off the explosion.
I was conscious during the explosion but I don’t really remember seeing anything. I don’t know whether that was because my eyes were blurry or because of the dust, but everything in my vision kind of cut out. It was very disorientating. The first time I knew it was me who had been injured was when I heard the guys coming to treat me and speaking to me. I’m not sure how I was aware that my legs were badly messed up, but I knew that they’d been badly damaged. Once the guys had given me morphine and carried me back to the helicopter pad, reassuring me on the way, I asked one of my friends to tell me if my legs had gone. And he said yes.
It was about nineteen minutes until the helicopter came to pick me up and take me back to Bastion, which is when the surgeons took over. I don’t remember much from this point, but I was still conscious and apparently telling the medics that there was no way they were putting me to sleep. That makes sense, because the only thing I can remember clearly is thinking “just stay awake”. Apparently, I made it all the way back to Bastion wide awake, fighting with them not to put me to sleep, and eventually the medics agreed that they weren’t going to knock me out. I don’t remember being in a lot of pain. I think the morphine and the adrenalin had taken that away from me. When I landed at Bastion, I was just starting to slip into unconsciousness and was induced into a coma.
They stabilised me in Bastion for about a day, then flew me back to Birmingham and about three weeks later I was brought round. When I woke up, I was aware that my legs had gone. I didn’t really know much about the other injuries at that point. I was coming off all the drugs I’d been on, and it took a couple of days to distinguish what was a dream and what was reality. After few days a doctor came in, and told me the extent of my injuries straight out. Looking at it now, I think it was better that I got told everything straight away, but at first it was just devastating. My legs were both blown clean off, at quite a high point. My right leg is a high above-knee amputation; I’ve got a stump left. My left leg was taken all the way up to my hip, so there is nothing there. I had a lot of other internal injuries. My genitals and my stomach were damaged. My genitals were badly burnt; they were kind of burnt into the side of my right leg. I’ve now had an operation to reverse all of that. My bodily functions were very affected, both urinating and defecating. I had to have a colostomy bag to be able to poo, because my bum was badly injured and scarred, and my stomach had to be cut smaller and put back together. With regards to my right arm, the elbow was badly injured because of the way we hold our weapons.
It was devastating because I was so ignorant about what people in that position can actually do in life. I was thinking I can’t drive, I’m going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, can’t run, can’t play football, my Army career is over. I was aware of everything I couldn’t do any more. My attitude changed when I got to Headley Court and saw the other guys doing all sorts of mad stuff, but I spent three more months in hospital before I got there. That was definitely a difficult time, coming to terms with everything. You only have three or four hours visiting time a day, and the rest of the time you’re left on your own with nothing to do but think about what’s happened. It was my stubbornness that got me through being alone a lot, and also the military training I’d had helped me to get on with it. I have no doubt that both those elements were a big part of why I survived in the first place, and certainly how I managed to push through things and get on with my life. The Army teaches you to improvise, adapt and overcome, and that saying is so relevant to me now. Also, I’ve always had a good support network: I’m close to my family and I’ve got great friends both civilian and military. Even though I only saw them for a few hours each day, I could still phone them in between visiting and talk to my mates.
It was a hard time but once I got to Headley things changed massively. It was a game changer. You can see how people are progressing right in front of your eyes. Everybody’s injuries are different, but you can see where someone is nine months down the line from where you are, you can see someone up and running on prosthetic legs and training for a marathon, it’s just unbelievable. You’re kept busy during the day there as well: physio, fitness, learning to drive again. Everything that you were worrying about not being able to do, they’ve got it covered and they’ll show you how you can do it.
At that time, walking was one of my main goals. But because of how high my amputations are, that had to be put on the back burner—I was advised that it was going to be extremely difficult for me, and even if I did manage, it would have taken me such a long time to walk anywhere. I could do things far, far quicker in my wheelchair and I didn’t really want to walk around like an old man. That would have been worse than being in a wheelchair to me. Although the advice about not walking was initially gutting, my arm was getting much better because of all the work I’d been doing. This meant I was able to move from an electric chair to a manual one, and that was almost like being able to walk for me. It meant more freedom – it’s unreal the amount of times you go somewhere and you can’t do something because your battery power’s low, so to change into a manual chair was massive for me. My other goals all related to gaining bits of independence. Things like learning how to drive again and cooking. Just learning how I can do all the things I took for granted. I was most worried about losing my independence; that would have been a massive thing for me to lose. For a while, I did lose it—I had to have a carer all the time during the very early stages of recovery, which I found difficult. Then there were times when I didn’t even want to go into shops because I felt like I was in people’s way. But it just took a little time to get my head around, and then you realise that actually you’re not generally in people’s way, and they aren’t really bothered even if you are. It’s just adjusting your mindset.
I was at Headley Court for about twelve to eighteen months and I was able to live pretty much independently straight after, bar one or two things. Now, I don’t see anything as a challenge—I probably do more now than any of my mates do who aren’t in wheelchairs. I’ve got some news recently about a different type of prosthetic leg so trying that out will certainly be a big focus, and I’ve just got a hand cycle so I’m going to start training on that. Those are my challenges at the moment. But in day-to- day life, I’ve adapted well. I clean my house, I’ve got three dogs to look after, I cook—there’s nothing I can’t do on my own. Even with driving, I can chuck the wheelchair in the car myself. But there is one other major thing that needs to be sorted. As I said, my genitals were very badly injured, and that obviously seriously affected my sexual function. In the early days, I actually wasn’t worried about that—I was more worried about just surviving, and then regaining my independence. But now that my health is back, the most important thing is to sort out my sexual function. My genitals are still being reconstructed, and I was originally told that I definitely couldn’t have kids. But some developments have happened recently, and the doctors think that maybe there’s a chance I could have them. I’ll find out in the next few months. It’s not that important to me right now, but in the future it could become the most important thing in the world.
I was with my girlfriend Leanne before I went to Afghanistan, and we planned to get engaged when I got my leave. Obviously that plan changed quite dramatically. We clung together so hard in the early days after my injury that it felt like we could get through anything. We got married almost a year to the day after I was injured. All the people who had helped us through it were in one room and it was an amazing day. I can’t tell you exactly why the marriage broke down. There wasn’t a falling out. I just think, after a while, we figured out we weren’t as compatible as we’d thought, and maybe we just clung to each other because of what we’d been through. When I became more independent and stopped needing Leanne’s help as much, it gave her more time to think about everything. That changed a lot of things for her, which in turn changed the way she was with me, which then changed my feelings about her. I didn’t fall out with her or anything like that, and the split was quite amicable. I’ll always be grateful for her support through the worst time possible and I’ll never forget that. She’s met someone else now. I wish her every happiness, but I don’t think we’ll be friends. I’ve moved on in my life and I think she has too and that’s best for both of us.
About two weeks ago I was medically discharged out of the Army. I’ve started my own charity, to give back to the charities that helped me out. That’s a really important thing for me. I spend a lot of time organising events for it, like sporting ones or sponsored ones like skydives. We’ve done a couple of dinner nights and auction nights, which have been really successful. I’m also an ambassador for the Lancashire County Cricket Club Foundation, and I help them with their fundraising. My injury compensation was good and I’m also paid a monthly allowance, so I don’t need to go out and look for a job. I can enjoy what I’m doing with the charity work, and I’m going to throw myself into that for the long term.
Without a doubt I feel that I have cheated death. My body’s been chopped in half. It’s amazing when I think about what must have been done to save my life. The medics on the ground, my guys—the first person to come and treat me was in the Territorial Army, so he was just a civilian with a little bit of army training and he had to deal with me. It’s amazing. One of the medics who treated me in the helicopter contacted me about a year later. When she contacted me, I was really glad because I wanted to say thanks for what she’d done. She went on to tell me that she’d recently been medically discharged for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and she struggles with that. She treated literally hundreds who were injured similarly to me. On the day of my incident, she treated four other people—two were triple amputees. I think the pure volume of it eventually sunk in and her brain thought, “I’ve had enough of this.” One of the questions she asked me was “Did I do the right thing? Would you rather have died that day because of the position you’re in now?” To which obviously I said, “Yeah, of course you did the right thing, I’m really glad you did it.”
I do have a different way of looking at things. I owe it to the guys who didn’t make it home to make the most of what I’ve got. I try to remember the guys who died all the time. I’ve got a bench made at home, which has the names of guys I personally knew engraved on it. That’s something for me to remember them by. I’ve got a quad bike that I ride as well, and I’ve had the portraits of four guys from my regiment who were killed in Afghanistan put on it. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved now and I think they would be too, and that’s important to me. That is a big spur on for me. And once you’ve been blown up, what else is there to be stressed about? I do feel very lucky to be alive because about ten different doctors have told me I probably shouldn’t be. So if you can’t count that as being lucky, then what can you?