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Captain<\/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 a Captain in The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. In 2009, I was deployed to Sangin in Afghanistan with the 2 Rifles Battle Group. I was in charge of what is called the Fire Support Group. The role was essentially to support the Rifle Companies; the ground fighting Riflemen. To do that job, I had the pleasure of using vehicles called Jackals and a lot of heavy weapons such as 50 calibre machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, Javelin missiles and a whole host of other kit and equipment. It was a job that I\u2019d really been looking forward to doing and we had some fairly good successes on that tour. But on 21st May 2009, the vehicle I was in unfortunately hit an IED out in the desert. I was injured and spent the next eighteen months going through my recovery, with somewhere between twenty and thirty operations to try and fix the damage.<\/p>\n
At this time I was about 27; I had a two-year-old son. I really enjoyed being in the Army, it was something I had always wanted to do, ever since I was very small. Despite a lot of the difficult things we had to do, it was a job I revelled in and felt that I was good at. I don\u2019t think I was nervous before we went out to Afghanistan, as I felt very prepared before I went. Because of the casualties we\u2019d taken on previous tours, I made the point that we should prepare as well as possible. That included getting the balance right with medically trained people, because there’s a guideline that you should have one in four soldiers who is a team medic. I went all guns out and had every single one of my blokes\u2019 team medic trained. So, I felt prepared in that sense but, at the time, my wife Liz was pregnant with our second child, which we also had to try and plan for. I was going to deploy at the beginning of April, and she was due around the middle of May. RAF flights aren\u2019t hundred per cent certain when they\u2019re going back, so \u2013 rather than face the uncertainty of whether I\u2019d make the birth \u2013 we set the date for my R&R for six weeks afterwards. Then Liz wouldn\u2019t have to stress whether I would or wouldn\u2019t make it; she knew I wouldn\u2019t be there, so she could plan for that. I\u2019d then come back six weeks later, probably just as her adrenalin was hitting a low point and meet my daughter. That was the plan before I went.<\/p>\n
It was a very quiet start to the tour. It had been poppy season, so everyone was harvesting and cultivating. It does go really quiet around then. This allowed us the luxury of identifying some of the potential enemy main players and getting to know the ground that we were going to be working in. We\u2019d had a great handover from 45 Commando, Royal Marines, which was brilliant. I was the only callsign in the Forward Operating Base with vehicle support, so one of my jobs was to go out into the desert to the east, towards a stronghold called Malmand. That was a major enemy stronghold, and we were going to try and identify the routes that the enemy was using to smuggle arms in or opium out of Sangin. I was injured on one of those patrols.<\/p>\n
We\u2019d been laid up all night, we set up an observation post and we started the morning with a couple of contacts that led to the enemy trying to mortar us. They hadn\u2019t seen that we had actually moved position, so they unfortunately mortared a local village. But unfortunately for them, we could see the mortar team, so we started engaging them with our weapons, machine guns and grenades, and began an attack. Eventually the enemy was wounded and withdrew from the area. We were just reorganising to go back and make sure there weren\u2019t any civilian casualties from the mortar attack when my vehicle, which was about the second vehicle in the convoy, drove over an IED.<\/p>\n
My first memory is lying on the desert floor, which is quite rocky, and just looking up at the massive blue sky. I\u2019m pretty sure my first thought was \u201cWhat the hell am I doing on the floor?\u201d I then looked over and saw that the Jackal vehicle had been blown up, so I started shouting to see if the driver and the gunner were OK. The answer came back: \u201cWe\u2019re fine, boss.\u201d At that point I started to realise that I couldn\u2019t move my left arm and I couldn\u2019t move either of my feet. I was trying to sort myself out, so I started going for my first aid kit and I couldn\u2019t quite get to it because of my lack of mobility and how I\u2019d landed. I must have flown about twenty metres from the vehicle, and that\u2019s not a fisherman\u2019s tale\u2014I\u2019ve got photographic evidence to prove it. I think what happened was that the blast wave right underneath me shattered both my heels because they were on the foot plate of the vehicle, which launched me out. Luckily the machine gun, which was in front of me, must have got blown off at the same time, so I didn\u2019t have to smash through it with my legs, which would have been a nightmare. I think the damage to my left arm probably happened when I landed. I also got some scarring from the shrapnel of the initial blast.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s strange, your training kicks in. I felt a sense of pride as I started watching and listening to the blokes sort themselves out; get the metal detectors off the vehicle, see if their radios were working, trying to get radio coms with another vehicle The blokes did really, really well. They went through the procedures so professionally and so well, and also maintained a sense of humour. None of them panicked or did anything daft, they were brilliant. It\u2019s really strange how proud it makes you feel when you\u2019re lying there. They found another six bombs either between me and the vehicle or around me and the route to where the helicopter was going to come and land.<\/p>\n
The helicopter took about thirty to forty minutes to get out to me, from the moment I was blown up. There was a lot of other stuff going on. Once the guys got to me, they started doing first aid and gave me a shot of morphine. My Sergeant arrived with the patrol medic, who was a more qualified medic. He did a cracking job and identified the amount of blood I was losing from my left arm. That\u2019s also probably when I got my second shot of morphine. The Sergeant got the stretcher organised, and they started taking me down to where the helicopter was going to land. I remember one of the Fusiliers lighting up a cigarette for me, as he knew it would be a while until I\u2019d have another one. That was pretty good, I was lying on a stretcher, proper Lord Muck lying there with a fag in my hand, chit-chatting with the blokes. There was a fair bit of pain in my arm and my feet, and such a rush of emotions going on. When they were trying to stem the bleeding in my left arm, I started feeling a bit faint and I started drifting out. I didn\u2019t know how bad it was going to be so I said, \u201cWhatever happens, make sure someone gets a message to Liz that I love her.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I was lying on the ground, I was worried I was going to die. I felt sad for things undone or unsaid. My newborn daughter Emily was two weeks old at that point. Having not seen her or held her, that was quite an emotional thought. To have that and to not say goodbye to my son or anything. I suppose as well, there was a strange pain and suffering, because I knew my mum would be really angry with me, and Liz probably too. I couldn\u2019t tell you how long those thoughts were with me for. The thought process feels like it\u2019s an eternity and it takes ages to explain but it might only have taken two seconds to actually think it.
When we got on the helicopter, the doctor turned out to be an old school friend of mine. He jacked me full of ketamine. I\u2019m a big fan of Class A drugs in that situation, although the irony wasn\u2019t lost on me that here I was in Afghanistan, where part of the fight was against using drugs, and there I was using an opium-based drug. But needless to say, that journey passed really quickly.<\/p>\n
It turned out to be quite a busy day for the Emergency teams in Camp Bastion. There were other incidents around theatre, so we were held for about 24\u201330 hours before flying home, which is pretty typical anyhow because you need to make sure the brain hasn\u2019t had any swelling. I drifted in and out of consciousness on the flight back. There was an American Colonel there who was a pain specialist and he gave me a really wonderful pain medicine. There were only a few times where I was uncomfortable. I remember we landed in Turkey briefly and we landed in Cyprus briefly and then we went back to RAF Brize Norton. And then we got the ambulance from Brize Norton to Selly Oak.<\/p>\n
They got me into a ward, took my details, gave me a bit of a wash because I was still in the pants that I\u2019d been wearing when I was injured and I was still covered in dirt. Liz, my mum and the kids had been really well looked after by our Welfare Office, and had been brought up to see me. Liz came in first and then I think came back with Emily and then my mum and Felix came in. I think the hospital staff made sure they weren\u2019t going to overload me. It was just amazing to see my wife, who had obviously been worried. I think she chose a few choice expletives for me, and then introduced me to my daughter, who I hadn\u2019t held before. There\u2019s a really nice picture of us at that moment, of a tiny little baby\u2019s head resting on my lap. It was an emotional day. There have been so many highs and lows since then, but that day was a particular high.<\/p>\n
I had an operation on my arm pretty much immediately to pin it and I\u2019ve got pretty much full function back in that. The pins and screws are still there, and it\u2019s fine. As for my feet, they decided they were going to treat the right one conservatively, and just let it heal. The medical team thought that it would take about four months until I could put any weight through it. The left one was in a much worse condition, so they thought they\u2019d operate and put plates and screws in it and see what they could do. I thought that the procedure had gone fairly well. But, about three weeks later, I arrived at Headley Court to start my rehab. I\u2019d been there about six hours, I had a fever all night, and the next morning, my foot literally exploded with infection. And that started the infection saga.<\/p>\n
We spent nine months back in Birmingham with occasional stints in Headley Court, and then eventually in East Grinstead, which has a specialist plastics centre. My plastic surgeon applied a number of dressings: honey, leeches, silver, all these kinds of ancient ones. They did things like taking a muscle from my leg and stitching it on the outside of my foot. They tried doing propeller flaps, where they\u2019d take the skin and move it, just to try and get the blood flow back to my foot and help the body fight the infection. But it\u2019s such a difficult part of the body to do that with.<\/p>\n
It got to February time and my wife and I met with the consultant. He was one of the best in the UK, and he said, \u201cI can operate on it for the next eighteen months and you\u2019ll have a wafer-thin heel. You’ll probably need a stick to walk, and there are no guarantees.\u201d There never is with medical stuff, in my mind. I was in loads of pain, probably on about 130 milligrams twice a day of morphine, taking four IV antibiotic drips a day. I was grey. I probably personally didn\u2019t think I was that bad but if you speak to my family and my friends, they\u2019ll say I was quite vacant, dazed and confused a lot of the time. I just felt it wasn\u2019t the way to live my life. I didn\u2019t want to sit in hospital for three years, not when I was 27, 28. Those were years that I’d much prefer to spend with my family. I knew that later down the line, my right foot would get worse, so I had a limited period of time available to me. It seemed like the best, and in many ways the easiest, decision to amputate my left leg below the knee. We went ahead and did that on 30th March, which was a shame as it would have been nice if it had been on April Fool\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n
When the pain relief wore off from the operation it was the worst pain I\u2019d been in. It gave me a bit of an idea of what it must have been like when they didn\u2019t have anaesthesia and they had to do those operations. But I also had the freedom of not having this dead weight hanging round, and my leg had looked repulsive before I had it cut off. I thought, \u201cActually, I can start moving on\u201d, and within four or five weeks of the operation, I\u2019d been fitted for a prosthetic. I remember there being this weird moment when you\u2019re on this tiny pole and you think, \u201cThere’s no way that can support me.\u201d There are a lot of trust issues you go through with your new leg when you get started, but you then build up on it.<\/p>\n
I wanted to see how capable I could be on it. So I did Pen y Fan, the mountain in Wales that the SAS sometimes use for their Selection course. I wanted to prove to myself that I\u2019d made the right decision and that I could still be mobile. It was also a case of knowing that I should trust the leg, knowing that if I could do that, I could pretty much do anything. There was a bit of pride involved as well\u2014I\u2019d always wanted to go for Selection. I realised very quickly what a stupid idea climbing the mountain was. It hurt like hell. It wasn\u2019t too bad going up, which was nice, as the front of the foot can bend a bit, but when you’re coming down, all you\u2019re riding on is your heel. By the end of the day I was in a lot of pain but it was definitely worth it. There were a lot of us with heel injuries who went for elective amputations eventually. I was one of the first and I wanted people to think I\u2019d made the right decision. I felt that I\u2019d made the right decision but a physical affirmation of that is a good thing. I then got into rally car driving when I was going through my recovery, and did the Dakar Rally. I realised then that not only did I love it but I thought I could be good at it. It\u2019s nice because there\u2019s no separate class for people with disabilities. So from my point of view, that was good. That\u2019s something I\u2019d like to pursue.<\/p>\n
I was medically discharged in March 2013. I really struggle with the idea of working in an office. I enjoyed the Military because of the variety of things you did week in, week out. There are certainly no other jobs exactly like it. I’m only 31, so in fact most of my future career won\u2019t be in the Military. I still find myself confused with what it is I want to do. What is it that’s going to define me? You need motivation; you need to have a focus and a goal. I want to try and perhaps move away from relying on the military aspect of my life so far, and look towards other things. It\u2019s by chatting to people, meeting new people, that you can do that. I realise that maybe the first job won\u2019t be right, maybe the second job won\u2019t be right, but at least it will give me more of an idea of what it is that drives me and will help me succeed at something in the future.<\/p>\n
Life is certainly altered by my injury; my daughter talks more to my leg than me, I think. She calls it Leggy Leg. Little things like getting out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the toilet are annoying. I hop, which actually causes more damage to my right foot. I’ve never been one to worry about what I look like physically and I won\u2019t hide my leg. If it\u2019s hot, I\u2019ll wear shorts. I think my mum would like me to cover it, I think she really suffers with that. I think the recovery process was a lot harder for her than it was for me and my wife and family. Because she\u2019d given birth to a healthy boy and now, by her definition, I\u2019m no longer that same healthy boy. Whereas I would say, just because I\u2019m physically different, it doesn\u2019t mean that I\u2019m mentally different. I\u2019m still me. That took a long time to come to terms with and to some extent it\u2019s still going on. I’m not afraid of talking about my injury, I won\u2019t shy away from what happened. I can talk frankly to my son\u2019s friends, my daughter\u2019s friends, kids, adults, and just answer their questions. We\u2019re naturally inquisitive and I don\u2019t find that a bad thing. I think the more you can be open and upfront about it, the better I try and do a lot of fundraising activity for organisations like Help for Heroes, because it\u2019s important for people to see what is possible for other people who are injured. But it also gives me a chance to say, just because you see some of us doing well, it doesn\u2019t mean that all of us are doing well \u2013 it\u2019s important to remember that. Support needs to continue, for other casualties coming back, and for existing veterans. More problems can arise from your injuries as you get older. I think, if anything, my prosthetic leg will become my good leg. The damage that my right has sustained is already coming to light more and more.<\/p>\n
The ankle is getting weaker, it clicks around quite a lot and that will develop into arthritis. Whether that is in three years, seven years or ten years, I don\u2019t know but it will certainly come. I might end up having to use a stick, which is fine \u2013 I won\u2019t shy away from using tools to make life easier. But it will be frustrating if I don\u2019t achieve what I want to now, especially physically. For me, if I can get out there and show that I can be a good driver, if I can train people and motivate people then I\u2019d be very happy.<\/p>\n
I think my experience has made me appreciate what I\u2019ve got. If it hadn\u2019t been for my family when I was going through everything, I wouldn\u2019t be the same person I am now. I needed the motivational talks from them because everyone goes through a dark day. You also need friendship and a support network around you, and that\u2019s something the charities do and my Regiment, The Fusiliers, did brilliantly. It\u2019s meant that I now feel more secure and better, both mentally and physically. I\u2019m now in a position where I feel it is a duty and responsibility to make sure that I can go back and give the same help to other people.<\/p>\n
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CaptainAnthony HarrisI was a Captain in The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. In 2009, I was deployed to Sangin in Afghanistan with the 2 Rifles Battle Group. I was in charge of what is called the Fire Support Group. The role was essentially to support the Rifle Companies; the ground fighting Riflemen. To do that job, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3588,"menu_order":3,"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-3572","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n