Page 13 - QARANC Vol 20 No 1 2022

Tony Williams is a former Corporal within the QARANC who suffered horrific, life-changing injuries while tending to casualties in Afghanistan. This is his remarkable story, including how a leg brace funded by the Association is helping him to lead a full life again.
As the son of a sergeant major, and growing up around soldiers, it was perhaps inevitable that Tony Williams would answer the call to serve.
But it was the childhood trauma of his mother’s cancer, and the experience of playing sport at boarding school, where the mantra was ‘never leave a man behind’ that set him on a journey into nursing.
Tony recalls, “I was at boarding school in Dover, when my mum got breast cancer. I was barely 11 years old, the second eldest of six, and
battles course and advanced trauma life support, unusually I was able to patrol with the infantry.”
Tony had an important job running the medical hub in the base, as well as doing valuable outreach work engaging offering health advice to the local population as part of British attempts to win hearts and minds. He was coming back from a market which had been blown up, a few short weeks earlier, by the Taliban when the patrol was engaged by the enemy, and, bizarrely, the Afghan National Police as well, who got confused about who was attacking.
It took the British about 45 minutes to overcome the enemy threat with one casualty, a friend of Tony’s who suffered a bullet ricochet into his lip.
“I fired off a couple of rounds and, as
pressed down on his chest and I got a whole inhale of burnt flesh,” said Tony, adding that this had later played a part in his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The village elder was taken to Camp Bastion where unfortunately he still died, but the community had seen the efforts that the British Army had put in to save him, and it was appreciated.
A week later Tony’s patrol was in a village hunting for an ammo stash when there was a shout of “grenade”. He dived headfirst into an irrigation ditch, but the grenade landed under him and was thrown a couple of metres. He ended up with ‘frag’ embedded in his forehead and nerve damage. A colleague was also injured but, overall, the patrol was left feeling “incredibly lucky” to have avoided more serious injury or fatalities.
Tony was treated at Camp Bastion and had an opportunity at this point to
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with my dad being away on exercise I ended up taking on a bigger position within the family. I was at a very rugby-focused school where the culture was, if someone got hurt, you pick them up, and this drove that principle within me. I’m pleased to say that my mum made a full recovery.”
I fired off a couple of rounds and, as I did a press-up to get back on my feet a bullet landed just underneath my armpit – it missed luckily
I did a press-up to get back on my feet a bullet landed just underneath my armpit – it missed luckily. That set the tone for the rest of the tour, it was a daily occurrence after that,” said Tony.
Early one morning a week later, a village elder from a pro-Taliban compound stepped on an IED and ended up as a high double amputee. Tony answered the call of ‘Medics to the back gate’ and saw the casualty
After A levels, Tony
decided on a professional
career in nursing. He joined
the Army in 2003, attending Army Training Regiment Winchester and the Royal College for Defence Medicine. About this time, he was viciously attacked in a taxi by a robber who attempted to steal his wallet, and on seeing a military ID card “panicked” and plunged a knife he was holding into Tony’s chest.
“He came off worse,” says Tony, “I managed to push him out of the taxi window.”
Thankfully the wound was superficial, but the incident gave Tony the confidence to know he could perform in tough situations and do what was required to win.
He was posted to Northern Ireland and then on to the Cheshire Regiment where he was eventually deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 to work alongside the British Army.
Tony recalls, “The casualty rate was going up and we were spread around to support the Marines and the Gurkhas. I went with my company to a place called Babaji. I was really far forward and because I had done my
being carried into the base wrapped in a blanket. He recognised the man as someone he had spoken to previously, and though he was rapidly fading, Tony and colleagues moved heaven and earth to keep the man alive.
“Just as I was about to do a rescue breath, one of the other infantry lads