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Private<\/p>\n
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[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=“Subtitle“ _builder_version=“4.27.4″ text_font=“Unna||||||||“ text_text_color=“#747d88″ text_font_size=“18px“ text_line_height=“1.8em“ header_font=“||||||||“ max_width=“700px“ module_alignment=“left“ custom_margin=“|||“ custom_padding=“||20px|“ animation_style=“slide“ animation_direction=“bottom“ animation_delay=“100ms“ animation_intensity_slide=“4%“ locked=“off“ global_colors_info=“{}“]<\/p>\n
I was injured in Afghanistan in August 2009, serving in The Parachute Regiment. We\u2019d just come off a very successful night-time operation and we were making our way back to the Helicopter Landing Site where we were going to get picked up. Then we got a message over the radio that movement had been spotted on our primary site. The helicopters weren\u2019t happy to land there, but we always have a secondary one as a backup.<\/p>\n
On our way to the second site, we came across a Taliban stronghold which was an old Afghan National Police checkpoint. We worked closely with the Afghan National Army, and we sent a section of them forward to warn these guys that we were coming through. At this point we couldn’t really verify whether they had any weapons. Whilst the ANA moved forward, they got in contact and quite a big firefight broke out.<\/p>\n
The firefight lasted for roughly forty minutes, when at a certain point the enemy tried to outflank us and overrun us from the left side; it\u2019s what we call a \u2018shoot and scoot\u2019. They just aim in a general direction and fire. Two RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] were fired from our left, the first one came over our heads and exploded in the distance, the second one was fired low.<\/p>\n
With an RPG, there\u2019s a trigger mechanism on the front of the nozzle of the warhead. It needs impact to explode, so if it\u2019s got no impact, it will just bounce on and on. In the sight of our night vision goggles, I saw a flash coming my way, and in those couple of seconds, I just reacted on instinct and turned to my left-hand side. The bone in my arm was hard enough to initiate the RPG switch and triggered the warhead.<\/p>\n
The explosion took off my left arm, and a third of my left thigh, and caused various shrapnel wound injuries to my left side. If I hadn’t reacted in the way I did, I probably would have been killed, as the RPG would have exploded on my ribs, smashing all my internal organs. So a couple of seconds of reaction saved my life.<\/p>\n
I woke up roughly seven metres from my original position, as the blast threw me up in the air and threw me backwards. I was very confused. I didn\u2019t feel any pain at that stage, it was really a daze of confusion. I didn\u2019t realise I had been hit, I thought someone else had been hit. I could still hear my men around me, firing. All I thought about was getting back into the firefight, so I sat up and tried to hold my rifle again, but I couldn’t hold my rifle in the correct firing position. I tried twice and then I looked down. That\u2019s when I realised I had lost my arm. I tried to radio for help, but my radio was on the side of the explosion so it was destroyed.<\/p>\n
I started applying self-help\u2014we carry emergency kit, and I tried putting on a tourniquet. Luckily one of the other guys was not too far from me. He crawled over and helped me apply the tourniquet and then radioed in for the medic. The medic came over and they started treating me. I was taken to a field hospital; I\u2019m not sure of the details, I don’t know if it was Camp Bastion. It took roughly 32 minutes for them to pick us up. They came into what we call a hot LZ, a landing zone under fire. They landed in the middle of it and then got me casevac\u2019d out, and everyone else as well.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d broken my ankle quite badly, and to be honest, that probably caused me the most pain. All I can remember of that night is saying, \u201cMy ankle, my ankle.\u201d The boys were saying, \u201cJaco, your ankle\u2019s fine, you\u2019ve lost an arm, mate, that\u2019s much more to worry about.\u201d But I wasn\u2019t worried about my arm, I was just saying, \u201cPlease, don\u2019t touch my ankle, it\u2019s so painful.\u201d Most of my operations were carried out in theatre but within 36 hours I was back in the UK.<\/p>\n
I was really confused when I came round in Selly Oak. The last clear memory I had was being in Afghanistan in the firefight. The next moment you\u2019ve got your mum and all your family and your sisters all around you. The first obvious thing for me was their safety, I can remember so clearly thinking, \u201cHow in the world did they get into Afghanistan and are they safe?\u201d They kept telling me I was in a hospital in Birmingham back in the UK, but it didn\u2019t sink in, I kept thinking I was in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
But I came to know the extent of my injury pretty quickly. I knew I\u2019d lost my arm. At that point, my family weren\u2019t really sure if I realised what had happened. I think that was a really hard thing for them: to think who was going to break the news to me that I\u2019d lost my arm. One day I woke up and they asked me how I felt. I said, \u2018I feel like a bloke who\u2019s just lost his arm\u2019, kind of a little joke. I think there was a big sense of relief then\u2014that I understood what had happened to me.<\/p>\n
Initially, you\u2019re still in the mindset of thinking, \u201cI\u2019ll just recover from it and be back on the frontline within a couple of months.\u201d As time goes on, you actually realise how hard life is without an arm and how difficult it is to overcome day-to-day little jobs. I reckon it\u2019s the small things that are the most difficult, though I do get along perfectly fine now. There are certain ways and means you can make your life so much easier.<\/p>\n
I wanted to do the Arctic Expedition because I wanted to know what I was capable of doing, mentally and physically. Just because you\u2019ve lost an arm, or whatever other injuries you might have, it doesn’t put you out of the equation of doing absolutely anything you want. It\u2019s been a lifelong dream and I couldn\u2019t think of a bigger challenge than going to the North Pole with the various injuries I have. Like I said, it\u2019s finding your limits and knowing what you\u2019re capable of doing.<\/p>\n
When I was on the expedition, it did hit home how important it is and how great it is to have two arms. For instance, pulling up your jacket in forty-mile-an-hour winds while it\u2019s minus 28 degrees, it\u2019s totally different, or putting up a tent while it\u2019s minus 40 degrees and not being able to help seven other blokes. Or, you might\u2019ve spilt a bit of water the previous time you had some water out of your bottle and it\u2019s frozen up, and you can\u2019t open it up, so you need to get someone else to open it. That’s when you realise how difficult life is with one arm. But there are certain ways you learn to get around it \u2013 it\u2019s like anything, you adapt to it.<\/p>\n
It can be really hard to actually make peace with your injuries. Although I began the process of my recovery very quickly, a lot of the boys who have been injured might struggle with it. That\u2019s also one of the main reasons that I volunteered to do this North Pole expedition \u2013 to raise the profile of the wounded, so others can see what we\u2019ve done. But a challenge doesn\u2019t have to be something as massive or as great as going to the North Pole. It might be something very common or very easy that you\u2019re really struggling with, or you find yourself unable to do any more. We don\u2019t want everyone to feel like they have to do the extreme stuff. But we want to inspire them\u2014to get on their legs, or walk to the shop, or whatever the next step is in their recovery phase. That\u2019s all we want to do\u2014to inspire them.<\/p>\n
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PrivateJaco Van GassI was injured in Afghanistan in August 2009, serving in The Parachute Regiment. We\u2019d just come off a very successful night-time operation and we were making our way back to the Helicopter Landing Site where we were going to get picked up. Then we got a message over the radio that movement had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3588,"menu_order":6,"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-3529","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n