The prosthetics world is a strange world.
Once you start you never leave. For instance here, I've been here for 20 years and I'm
still the baby of the branch really. I think there's only two guys that have been here
less than me and they've been doing 16 and 17 years. Yeah, we've all grown up together
really. We all get old together and it's never changed.
You will find a lot of patients that come here, come here very down in the dumps. Hospitals
aren't always the best places to be around. However, you do find in our department, in
prosthetics, someone will come in with their chin on their chest and once they see what's
available and what they can do, they find a lot of that out in the fitting rooms.
A young guy will come in depressed and down and sit there and listen to these old guys
who are still walking around on metal limbs that they wouldn't dream of swapping for a
leg that costs 20,000 bucks because they're happy on what they've got. And you'll find
that they'll sit there and listen to guys that are working for amputees in action, doing
stunts on films and they'll realise life's not as bad as it is and they'll generally
walk out a lot happier when they walked in.
The thing is with modern technology, it's going to cost a lot of money. For instance,
the CLEG is about 20,000 pounds but it is the number one microprocessor limb on the
market. But not everyone's suited to the CLEG. It's a high activity walking limb. It's
not a running limb or anything like that. It's purely for walking everyday life. But
yeah, the funding from the NHS does restrict on what you can get.
My accident happened. 1974, I was four years old. I was messing around on a railway line,
somewhere I shouldn't have been obviously. And I touched a live rail trying to cross
the track and I got electrocuted. It hasn't affected me at all in any way because of my
age that I lost it. I think to lose it as a youngster is much better. However, back then
prosthetics were like dinosaurs. They were heavy, aluminium and leather and wood. So
it would have affected me now because it would have disabled me. But because of technology
nowadays, I don't have any effect. I don't wish I had two legs and I don't miss it.
We get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing the kids come in. The problem with the kids
is not the kids, it's the parents. They're the ones that are really jumpy about what
their kids are going to cope and how they're going to get on in life. But generally a kid
will put the leg on and just run up the corridor and they disappear. And the parent will be
chasing them and say, don't run on that. Don't do that. You're not going to hurt yourself.
We always say to the parent, don't treat the kids any differently. If they're going to
climb a tree and fall out of a tree and break an arm, great. They've got to be able to
do what their friends and buddies are going to do. We can provide any limb that can do
anything. It's whether the person is up to that.
I was blown up on the 9th February, 2007, in a snatch Armadand, basically driving down
a road, bomb went off at the side of the road. I honestly thought it was from the other side
of the vehicle. I felt a thud, saw a black smoke and my eyeball shook for about 10 minutes.
I wasn't in much pain at all. I didn't realise so much that it was me. I thought it was from
the other side because the guy next to me was making quite a lot of noise and stuff
like that. I knew we'd been hit, but I thought I'd gone away with it. I'd felt a thud. I
knew something had hit me, but I thought it had come through him and then hit me, so I
wasn't too bad. Anyway, he dropped to the floor and I went down to try and help him.
I did a bit of first aid and that's when I realised that my leg was gone. It was still
attached loosely. I've seen it put weight through it. It's not attached properly. I remember
it just being numb from my feet all the way to my belly button. I just couldn't feel anything.
It's not attached properly. I thought I'd gone away with it. I thought I'd gone away
with it. I think the last count was around 5,000 seriously injured. Then probably 2,000,
3,000 of them will be very seriously injured, so I'm petitioned above. Then there's a lot
of deaths. When I got blown up, a really close friend of mine died a couple of weeks before
that. A young guy died on his first tour. I think there's a thousand of them. There's
thousands and thousands of guys doing good stuff, I think. I'm very proud of what I've
done. I really am, but I'm not the only one. It's great how much support people are getting
and how much drive people have. There's a big issue and quite a good saying within the
guys. We're one of few people where every day is Remembrance Day. We have a lot to
remember. There's thousands of them. There's loads of people with good stories. I have guys
who've climbed mountains, climbed everywhere, crossed oceans, crossed. It's inspiring for
me, really, because you're trying to keep up all the time and trying to beat the guy
that you were in the bed next to. My life's nothing, really. I just want it to go forward.
I'm lucky with the opportunities I've had and I'm very proud of what I've done with
it. There's far better stories than mine. I broke down one such in physio in prosthetics
had to walk out. I know it's this lad and when you first go to prosthetics you get
this cage thing. It's like a false leg, but not a false leg. It's just an inflatable bag
so you get used to putting weight on your stuff. There was this lad on that fucking
cage and I broke it because I knew exactly where he was. I knew exactly where his mind
was. It was the same leg. It was the same injury, do you know what I mean? I used 18, 19 as
well as the fucking hell something to stand by. It breaks me every time I go. It breaks
me every time I go.
Terminal Water is an inter-service charity. It aims to rinse by servicemen by taking them
competitive sailing, basically. It's a rehab tool, effectively. It's a different way of
doing gym work in a different environment.
Now, that charity was the first time I ever sailed. I was a bit of a guinea pig for them.
The physiotherapist who was the lead in starting it was the lad who taught me how to walk.
Chris would definitely be someone that I would now call a friend. He's a very entertaining
character. It was amazing to see how much he's come on and how, on the one hand, supremely
confident he is, but on the other hand, how open to learning and wanting to desperately
be this sponge and take all this new information on and be really good at anything that he
turns his hand to.
He's quite serious in trying to do a really, really good job, which sometimes is quite
odd with the very carefree sociable character that he is out of a work on the water.
Chris, I think he's been with Toe pretty much from the start as far as I gather. He's
only a single leg amputee. He's a very good inspiration for guys like myself and other
amputee soldiers to come down and see what he's done with Toe, and he's gone on to do
his yacht masters. Now he's at uni in ports with sailing every day in the uni, so it's
just proved that it's quite possible for amputees to get out and sail and do things. I was quite
excited about the fact of being able to get back and sail, but also a little bit sort
of cautious about what I could do on the boat, and at some points on the boat, like this
week and last time I come where I can't do anything, I can't do anything to help, I
just have to sit there, which can boil your blood a bit slightly, but it's not one of
these things, it's more fun than agonising pain time. I was out on Herak 11 in Afghanistan
in 2010, and I detonated a device with my left leg which took it clean off at the
instant, and then later on in hospital they took my right leg off, and that was straight
back to Birmingham to sell yoke for nine weeks, and then nine weeks there I moved on to
Headley Court where I've been for the past two years, and I've come to turn the water
twice as part of my rehab programme.
I get asked this quite a lot, actually, whether I would go back to having my legs and
change everything. I would, I wouldn't, I wouldn't. I would like to have two legs,
obviously. I would like to be able to be more agile, like if I sailed with two legs I could
do it ten times better, there's no argument about it, and I would love that, but I wouldn't
do that at the loss of everything I know now really. I was sort of jogging through life
really, I wasn't doing anything in particular, my army career obviously which was a big
thing for me, but I wasn't doing much else, I wasn't really helping anybody out, and
silly things as well, I wasn't that close to my parents, I kind of blew them off as
most young men do, and it just made me grow up a lot, I think.
I've done things that I'm really proud of. I got into uni, I got my A-levels, I got
my yacht master, done all these sorts of things, and I think I've grown a lot in the
last five years, more than most people I know at my age actually, because I've had to do
things three times harder, you know, sometimes. But yeah, no, I wouldn't go back, I definitely
wouldn't go back, although I'd quite happily have my legs met.
I'd go, I'd go, I'd go, I'd go, I'd go.
You
