Private
Alex Stringer
I deployed to Afghanistan in November 2010 with the 23 Pioneer Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps. I served there until 19th January 2011, when I was injured. I was the Commander of the search team. The primary role of a searcher is to go out and seek explosive devices. We then give the best description we can of the device: whether it’s pressure plate, command wire, high metal content, low metal content, no metal content, possible switches, and whereabouts we think the battery pack will be. To be honest, I knew a lot of us were going to be hit. I was half expecting not to be coming back. I had something niggling at the back of my head that it didn’t feel right.
On 28th December, we got a call through to say that our Sergeant Major had been hit and killed and we were going to go down and replace him and his team. So we moved down to Patrol Base Nadir from where we’d been based over Christmas, MOB [Main Operating Base] Price. We went straight out on the ground the day after we arrived, in order to finish clearing the route that the team had been killed on. We stayed over New Year’s doing that route—it was a bit demoralising because I was on the 1100–0100 stint on New Year’s Eve, so I actually rang in New Year’s on my own, in the back of a vehicle.
The day I got injured started like any other day. We got up and went through the usual morning routine, checking our kit to make sure it was in working order and things like that. It was meant to be a quiet day of admin. Then at about 11 o’clock, our boss went off for a meeting. He came back and said that he had a bit of good news and a bit of bad news. The good news was that he was bringing our R&R forward, and the bad news was that we had to go out on a job that afternoon. To me, that was good news as well, as we hadn’t been out in a while and I was getting a bit frustrated sitting around camp.
When we came to the location, two of my mates went off and searched out a safe area. The field we were in had been freshly ploughed, so there was no reason to suspect something was there. Nothing was found, so we moved in and set up. I thought I’d help the lads out, so I took all of the extra water, the extra spray cans and extra ammunition in my day sack. We use yellow spray paint to mark off the safe lanes, so people know that an area has been searched and is safe to walk down. We set out to isolation the device. I was actually the fifth man back and I was blown sky high by the explosion.
Being blown up feels like going into a rugby tackle that’s gone wrong. Your spine gets compressed from the force of being pushed upwards, and the next thing you know, you’re seeing a lot of sky and ground as you get flipped through the air, and then you’re heading back towards the ground. I landed with my pack on top of me, which did some damage to my spine. I thought it was my 2ic who had been hit. I was looking over my shoulder and thinking, “What the hell just happened?” I tried to push myself up and collapsed on my left-hand side—I didn’t understand what was going on, and why I couldn’t get up. Then I looked down and realised that both my feet were gone, and my arm was pretty mangled—it was bent backwards and it had no skin on it. My med pack was gone, so I didn’t know what to do. That moment felt like a lifetime but must only have been a few seconds. Then, my mate came to help me and started putting a tourniquet on my right leg. As he was doing that, we started hearing hissing coming from my left leg. We looked at each other and he stepped back and looked at me. As he stepped back, that leg exploded and more chunks of meat went flying. We were covered in yellow paint which had set on fire—the explosion was from the spray can in my pocket. There were six additional cans in my back pack, and they all followed suit afterwards. The reason I lost my left leg so high up is because burning paint cooked my left leg all the way down to the bone. But if I hadn’t set myself on fire, I would have bled out and died—as a result of it, all the arteries became cauterised.
The minute I got blown up, we got contacted from seven different positions in a 360- degree attack; we were taking fire from every single direction. The guys that were helping me were also under fire. Then the Chinook helicopter came in to try and get me. It was a huge relief to see it, but then a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at it. You’re not allowed to land under fire, so it withdrew and circled overhead. That’s when I thought, “I’m actually going to die here.” The main thing I was thinking about was the girls. I had to make sure that I got back because I didn’t want them growing up without a dad. I was just trying to concentrate on them. Then the Apache turned up, and rained fire down on the location, taking out the Taliban so that the Chinook could come back in and land.
I remember everything. I remember being a pain-in-the-arse patient: asking them to sit me up, asking for cigarettes, not taking it too seriously. I was more interested in having a fag then I was in actually being taken care of. I wasn’t in much pain. I think that’s to do with shock and adrenalin—if I hadn’t subsequently been given morphine and the shock had then worn off, I probably would be telling a completely different story. The minute I got into the helicopter, the medic came over to me, mask in hand, and said, “The next thing you’ll know, you’ll be in Birmingham.” My final words were “Crack on.”
I was in a medically induced coma for six days. My left leg was amputated when I got back to Birmingham. I lost my right leg below the knee in the field. I don’t remember the first time I woke up. I’m not too sure how many days after the incident it was, as my memory of the time frame is completely gone. I remember our family midwife coming in, and saying to her, “I’m a pirate!” because of my stump. When I woke up, I knew my feet were gone. I’d known that straight away after the incident happened.
But the arm surprised me; I’d known it was damaged but I didn’t know it was gone. They had tried to reconstruct my arm by putting a plate in, but it left me with hardly any movement in my hand. Then my left arm started poisoning me with an infection so it was a case of losing the arm or losing the person. But obviously I was unconscious, so I was never aware of any of this going on. I was in Birmingham for about four and a half months, then had a week at home, and then I was down at Headley Court for six weeks.
We were in a high-rise flat before I deployed to Afghanistan; it was my fiancée, now my wife, Danielle’s place. I was living in Barracks at the time, and I’d go and see her and the children at weekends. After I got blown up, I obviously needed a larger space. When we put this to the council, they said the flat was more than suitable for me, and that all they had to do was put in a wet room. They put in a standard wet room, with a high toilet for those who find it hard to sit down. That’s no good for me, as I need a normal height toilet so I can put my wheelchair over it—I don’t actually sit on the toilet otherwise I’ll fall in to the bowl. They gave me a shower, but I couldn’t use it because I couldn’t sit on the shower seat. At the time, my left leg was still open and still had stitches in it—it was too sensitive to be on the shower seat. So because I couldn’t sit on the shower seat, I had to wash at the sink. But I couldn’t use the bathroom sink because it had been moved right into the corner, and I couldn’t get to it in my wheelchair. The wet room for me was completely obsolete. I couldn’t use it at all. I had to use the bedroom sink or a bowl in the bedroom. I also had to get in and out of the flat using the lift, which often didn’t work. A couple of times, we were caught off guard when we were downstairs. We’d been out for the day, and I’d need to go to the toilet and the lifts would be out of order. I couldn’t just go to a friend’s flat, as I couldn’t fit in the toilet.
I was infuriated, because I’d pointed out all these problems before I left the hospital. I’d foreseen it and I’d been ignored. I felt like that was the story of my life—nothing is ever going to change. You get blown up and you still don’t get listened to. I did feel a little bit let down. It was challenging for Danielle, especially with two young children as well. We knew we were going to get a payout because of what had happened to me, and fortunately we found a nice house pretty quickly. She fell in love with it, so we bought it, moved out and got our life back on track. My injuries have brought my Danielle and me a lot closer. Before, I wasn’t a very nice person, I was pretty self- centred, and it has changed me. I’m lucky, because I have a very strong wife.
Danielle is a lot more in touch with her emotional side than I am, so it’s affected her a little bit more. In that way, it’s been harder for her than it has for me.
Losing my legs and arm never really fazed me; I just kind of cracked on. If I struggle with something, I take a step back for a minute and work out a way to do it. I think it is quite unusual to be like that—a lot of lads say they don’t see many disabled people doing as much stuff as I do. Going from six foot and reaching top shelves for everyone to then being this height and having to ask other people to reach top shelves for you is a bit demoralising. I think that’s the most apt word for it. I’m not very good at asking for help. I try and do everything myself. I’ll do it to the point where I either hurt myself or damage something else. That’s when I think, “Right, I’ve got to ask someone.” The biggest challenge for me is asking for help, I still can’t do it. I’m still working on that.
It’s the lads who have enabled me to survive this as a soldier. The way I justify my injury is that the mates I was out there with are fine, and nothing happened to them. I would rather that this happened to me than one of them having to deal with it. When I was blown up halfway through my tour, knowing all the lads were still out there played heavily on my mind. I felt like they should be here back with me or I should be out there with them, not split apart. It was hard feeling out of the loop. The boys getting back to the UK was a big relief for me. It was great to see them and know that everything is all right. Nothing is going to happen to them now, they’re back home and safe.
I’m leaving the Army this year. I’m obviously upset that I can’t carry on with my career in the Army, but I’d rather leave and go into employment so I can get back to normal life. I want to put what’s happened behind me and move on. At present, I can only do placement work—while you’re in the Army, until the last thirty days of service, you can’t be employed and paid by someone else. I’m on placement at Barclays at the moment. I’m hoping to go into a project management role. I like the work load, the challenges it presents. I don’t have any fears, because there’s no point really. If you start to worry about things, that’s when you stop doing things. You just have to crack on.