Page 14 - QARANC Vol 20 No 1 2022

14 The Gazette QARANC Association
return to the UK. He chose to stay as he knew the Army was short staffed on medics and he was “more determined than ever” to continue and support his colleagues.
He turned 26 a fortnight later and shortly after that he deployed southwards with the company to hold a checkpoint. It was to prove a life- changing experience.
“We were at war there from the get-go,” recalls Tony, who soon found himself in a ditch and pinned down by enemy fire for three solid hours.
The day after that, as rations began to deplete, the soldiers went out to secure supply routes and were again repeatedly engaged by the enemy again.
Having already treated a casualty early that morning, Tony was immediately back out on another patrol. With temperatures quickly rising, they got in a firefight, and he saw one of the commanders about 20 metres away was not moving. Tony got to him and found he had been shot in the head but was still breathing.
There was a flash, now, from the opposite direction, where they had been attacked in the morning. Tony’s friend, a Lance Corporal who was assisting was shot in the head and died immediately. It was clear they were under attack and flanked.
Tony pushed the first casualty into a recovery position and dived for the Lance Corporal, only to take a bullet in his left shoulder. “If I hadn’t had my arm raised the trajectory of the bullet would have hit my neck,” he said, recalling the fear they were being targeted by a sharpshooter.
Whilst being treated Tony looked around at the junior soldiers – barely
a 20-year-old among them. He took charge of my own treatment, remembering the BATLS course he went on in pre-deployment which emphasised the importance of keeping a casualty engaged.
Now whilst in a casualty holding area awaiting casevac, he looked around and realised he was the only medic on the battlefield, and the nearest casualty was about five metres away. “I thought I couldn’t just sit there and that I could still direct care.”
suddenly hit twice more in the helmet. “All of a sudden we were in a 360 ambush, and they have got elevated positions, we were getting shot at every angle,” said Tony. “Eight minutes had gone, I looked over and the casualty was still lying on his back, unable to get turned and aware that others was watching in horror as he laid there. I had to get to him and roll him into the ditch if he was to have any chance of surviving, if any. As I pushed him my
body armour rose.”
Tony felt catastrophic pain in his
abdomen. Suddenly he was paralysed and trying to pull himself into the ditch. He could still feel the bullets falling short and the dirt spraying in his face. Eventually somebody dragged him clear, and he remembers pickpocketing that soldier for his medical pouch to apply pressure to his wounds.
The skirmish took place over 18 minutes but felt like longer to Tony, who was eventually recovered to Camp
He handed his rifle to a
colleague and ran back out. He got to the first, nearest, casualty and quickly triaged him again.
A new patrol came to their aid and Tony advanced onto them and began briefing the new commander and medic of the situation. Suddenly he was
This was the first day of the rest of Tony’s life. It started with the prognosis he received in hospital, that he would “never walk again and had a less than five percent chance of ever having kids.”
He woke to hear that he needed 52 unit of blood, 18 hours of surgery, a
All of a sudden we were in a 360 ambush, and they have got elevated positions, we were getting shot at every angle
Bastion to be stabilised before being put on a flight back to the UK.
“I was worried about my two friends and desperately trying to give a handover. I remember the feeling like, life was leaving my body and then I woke up in Birmingham a week later from a medically-induced coma,” Tony recalls.