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Private<\/p>\n
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I went to Afghanistan at the end of March 2007. It was a summer tour with my Regiment: 2nd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment, part of 19 Brigade. My role was intelligence. I speak the language, so I can interpret into English. We would go to the villages and try to talk to locals, kind of like public relations, to inform people that it\u2019s going to be OK, that we are trying to come and protect you guys, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re here. It was tough; we went through so many hard times. We had to be on the road all the time, patrolling all the time, because we came under fire 24\/7.<\/p>\n
I lost my legs on Thursday, 19th July 2007. It was a normal routine patrol. It was early in the morning, and cold when we set off. We were very close to a place called the Green Zone, which is an extremely dangerous location. We had been tasked to go and clear a Helicopter Landing Site so we could travel to other villages in the area. It was often too dangerous to travel in a vehicle because the Taliban were laying mines all over the place.<\/p>\n
After clearing the site, we went up to the high ground so we could have a good view of the area and check that there was no form of enemy around\u2014they normally target the aircraft as it\u2019s about to fly out. Once we had reached the high ground I just knew that something bad was about to happen. I just knew it. Within seconds our vehicle was up in the air. It had sat right on top of two anti-tank mines that were hidden under the earth. The Taliban had put six-inch nails inside, hundreds and hundreds of them, and pieces of metal and ball bearings to do damage when they exploded. All I remember is that I was swallowed up by big clouds of smoke and I was thrown on top of some rocks. I didn\u2019t know I\u2019d lost both my legs or that all my bulletproof armour vests and body armour, all my weapons, everything had been destroyed. Not until I tried to stand up.<\/p>\n
When I looked down I knew then that I\u2019d lost both my legs because all I could see was blood all over me and all over the place. I was lying in a pool of blood and I was blustering for breath. I could hear people screaming and shouting. I knew I wasn\u2019t going to make it. I knew that I wasn\u2019t going to see my wife again or see my children again. That I wouldn\u2019t come back to the UK in one piece, that I would be returning to the UK in a box or a coffin. That\u2019s when I looked up to the sky and I said a prayer. I\u2019m a Christian, and a very strong believer in God. I looked up to the sky and I said, \u201cLord, if I\u2019m willing to use my life to encourage and to motivate others then give me back life again\u201d, but I still knew I wasn\u2019t going to make it as I was struggling to breathe.<\/p>\n
Then, two guys grabbed both of my shoulders and dragged me out from where I was, straight into a waiting helicopter. They tried to keep me breathing and alive because of the amount of blood that I had lost. They took me to Camp Bastion, the field hospital, which took about twenty minutes. Once I reached it, they took me directly into the operating theatre and the last thing I remember was a nurse talking to me. She said to me, \u201cDerek, be strong, you\u2019re going to be OK.\u201d Her voice was echoing, like she was speaking to me from a tunnel. All I could hear was the voices echoing and all I could see was red everywhere because of the amount of blood. And that was when I passed away. I learnt later that my heart had stopped three times before a plane flew me from Bastion to Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham.<\/p>\n
I was in a coma for eight and a half days. When I woke up, I saw my wife standing beside me and I thought, \u201cWhat is she doing here in Afghanistan?!\u201d My mind was still in Afghanistan and I was thinking I was still on the frontline! She was talking to me in a very soft voice telling me, \u201cYou\u2019re OK, don\u2019t be afraid, everything is going to be OK. You\u2019re in the hospital. You\u2019re in Selly Oak, you\u2019re in England now.\u201d I saw the doctors and the nurses standing up at the side of the bed and I said, \u201cWhat are they doing here? Who are these people?\u201d My wife said, \u201cThese are the doctors and the nurses, it\u2019s going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she\u2019d calmed me down I said, \u201cCan I go to the toilet, please?\u201d I was also saying, \u201cMy boot is too hot, I want to take off my boot.\u201d That\u2019s when she told me I couldn\u2019t go to the toilet. I asked why. I did ask a couple of times, I think, more than three times and on the third time she spoke to me and I could see tears in her eyes. She told me I didn\u2019t have my legs any more. Then she took a step closer to me, took my picture and then showed me the picture and said, \u201cThis is you now.\u201d When I saw my picture I was shocked and lost for words. I couldn\u2019t say anything at all. All I could do was look up to the ceiling. I was silent for a couple of minutes. I couldn\u2019t move because my back was broken. My clavicle was also broken. I\u2019d lost five front teeth. I was badly burnt on my left side and on my buttocks and I had pieces of metal throughout my body.<\/p>\n
After a while I said, \u201cDo you know what? Let\u2019s start again. Who knows, through this injury, many doors of opportunity will open and many doors of opportunity will come back, so let\u2019s start again.\u201d And that\u2019s how my recovery started. I\u2019m just a normal person like everyone else. I wouldn\u2019t call myself a fighter, I was just doing what I love to do. I\u2019m from Fiji, and in terms of history, Britain has played a big part in where I come from. That\u2019s the reason why I was so willing to fight for Great Britain. If was given the chance to go back to Afghanistan again, I would do it. I\u2019ve never regretted losing my legs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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PrivateDerek DerenalagiI went to Afghanistan at the end of March 2007. It was a summer tour with my Regiment: 2nd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment, part of 19 Brigade. My role was intelligence. I speak the language, so I can interpret into English. We would go to the villages and try to talk to locals, kind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3588,"menu_order":12,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3517","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n