Victim of a landmine in Afghanistan Corporal Andy Reid's battle to walk again and propose to his girlfriend

Victim of a landmine in Afghanistan Corporal Andy Reid's battle to walk again and propose to his girlfriend

• Corporal Andy Reid lost both legs and one arm in Afghanistan in 2009
• Determined to join his comrades on Remembrance Day he learned to walk
  
• Thanks to prosthetic legs he was able to get down on one knee and propose
• He is now married to girlfriend Claire and they have son William
  

By Andy Reid

PUBLISHED: 18:42 EST, 25 February 2013 | UPDATED: 05:38 EST, 26 February 2013

The voice was raw, terrified, almost hysterical. ‘Put out the light!’ it shrieked. ‘Put out that bloody light!’ With a shock I realised the voice was  my own.

I am a soldier. I hate light. I much prefer to skulk around in the darkness, unseen and unheard. If I am caught in the open and an unexpected burst of light from a rocket or a trip flare flashes across my line of sight, then my instinct and training tell me to get the hell out. To do whatever I can to get to the safety of the shadows.

But a piercing whiteness seemed to blind me. Was I even now in somebody’s cross-hairs? I lay still and waited.

Road to recovery: Andy Reid with wife Claire and 11-week-old son William 3.5 years after the landmine took his legs and arm

A strange, antiseptic smell filled the air â€" so different from the stench of dust, manure and rotting vegetables that I was used to in Afghanistan.

Then, the sound of a door opening jolted me back to reality and I was able make out someone standing in the threshold. My breath caught in my throat as I stifled a sob.

There, walking towards me, was my girlfriend Claire.

The thought of her had been my constant companion for the whole of my six-month deployment in Afghanistan. Every night as I waited for sleep, we would meet up in my head and chat together.

I would imagine and remember the softness of her hair, the warm scent of her neck, the way she laughed at my jokes. Now here she was, in the flesh and in my room. This was not a dream.

Before it all: Andy at Camp Bastion shortly after his arrival in July 2009

Aftermath: Andy stepped on a landmine whilst out on patrol in Helmand in October 2009 and lost both his legs and his right arm

Following her came two more people equally welcome. They gathered round my bed â€" the three most important people in my life: my Claire, my mother and my old man. I started to laugh, then to cry uncontrollably.

Claire explained that I was not in Afghanistan. I was in Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham. I was in the military wing; I was safe. A doctor had been shining a torch in my eyes â€" that explained the blinding light.

My sense of relief was short-lived, though, a creation of the morphine flowing into me through a plastic tube.

Because although I was ecstatic to be with the three people I loved the most, it could not bury my desolation at the loss of three other companions who had been even closer to me.

They were gone and I was missing them horribly. My left leg, my right leg and my right arm were 6,000 miles away, in a muddy field in Afghanistan. Lost to me for ever.

Yes, I was alive, thank God. But my life would never be the same again.

Determined: Corporal Reid joined his comrades as they received medals from the Duke of Wellington in Warminster, Wiltshire, less than a year after his incident

Standing tall: Determined to walk in the Remembrance Day parade with his regiment, Andy, right, pushed himself to recover and walked alongside his colleagues at the medals parade in 2010

'My guys': Andy Reid before the accident, standing second from right, and soldiers from his regiment, 3rd Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment

They say you never know you’re having the time of your life till it’s too late. I know what they mean, because for me, the autumn of 2009 was about as good as it gets.

I was doing the job I loved among some great blokes. I was in charge of quite a few of them. I was confronting the Queen’s enemies and I was as fit as a butcher’s dog.

I was in love with a great girl in England who I was going home to in ten days’ time. And I was going to buy myself a bloody great motorbi ke that would have everybody drooling with envy. Life could not have been better.

Then came the day that changed everything: October 13, 2009. The unluckiest 13th ever.

It had started well. With our tour nearly over, I was chuffed to be asked to take the incoming commanding officer on a familiarisation patrol: checking out the terrain, meeting the locals, patrolling the dodgy areas.

My mate Jamie was in charge of our Vallon minesweeper that day, scanning the ground in front of us as we picked our way carefully along a tyre-marked track. I paced slowly and deliberately behind him.

'At that moment, that was all that was important to me. Were my crown jewels where they were supposed to be?'

Those were the last conscious steps I ever took on my own two feet.

I don’t even recall feeling that I had trodden on anything. All I remember is that one moment I was following Jamie warily along the dusty ground. The next I was shooting into the air, cart-wheeling like a manic trampolinist and crashing back to the ground with a sickening thud.

How did it feel, people always ask. Was I in agony?

Actually, no. How can I describe it? Those who have played contact sports such as rugby will no doubt have experienced a really heavy collision. You run into a really solid prop forward or get tackled by some gorilla of a second-row.

Or you may simply have done something stupid like run int o a lamp-post or a door. Either way, there is a terrible shock that jars your whole being.

There is no pain as such, just a bone-splintering concussion that leaves  you numb and drives the breath from your body. That’s how I felt as I lay there, my ears ringing with a high-pitched whine, gasping for air.

I craned my neck downwards to see if I could see my legs. I couldn’t. I looked over to my right arm. I couldn’t see that either. On my left hand, the middle finger was hanging off.

Within moments, there were people swarming all over me. I could hear them shouting above the howling noise in my ears.

Princely greetings: Andy chats with Prince Harry at the Royal Hospital Chelsea's Founder's Day in May 2011

Royal pal: Andy, Claire and Prince Charles at the 2010 Millie Awards

A tourniquet was applied to the top of my right arm. They tugged hard to tighten it. Only then did pain suddenly intrude, and I screamed in agony.

At the same time a hideous thought occurred to me. I turned to Jamie and asked him a question you could only trust a friend to answer.

Could he check that my wedding tackle was all in place? At that moment, that was all that was important to me. Were my crown jewels where they were supposed to be?

A wave of indescribable relief flooded over me as Jamie reassured me that they were. And then I passed out.

My last memories of Afghanistan, hurtling in an Army helicopter towards the surgical team that would begin the battle to save my life, were of a sudden and intense rage.

‘Just ten days later,’ I thought to myself, ‘and I’d have been safely home, all my limbs intact.’

But I had to go and step o n a bloody land mine like an idiot. I had let everybody down. What would Claire say? Bang went the bomb, and with it bang went my body and my dreams of that lovely bike. 

I’m told that for 48 hours or so it was touch and go whether I’d live.

They got me home to Britain in double-quick time. Then came the painful moment when I tried to hug my mum and dad in the hospital ward in Birmingham. But with what?

My dad stood there, visibly distressed as he watched my pathetic writhing. He started to pat my head and rub my hair. There was not a lot left of me to grab hold of.

‘Pack it in, Dad!’ I yelled at him. ‘I’m not a dog!’

There was a brief embarrassed silence. Then everybody burst out laughing. My recovery had begun.

It would be wrong to pretend that there weren’t times during those early days when I wished the Taliban bomber had been better at his job and had finished me off completely. Not being able to do the simplest thing for myself made me feel useless and unwanted.

Helping hand: Andy's hand surgery means he can yet again hold a pint and throw a rugby ball

‘Is this it from now on?’ I raged one day. ‘If I can do f***-all for myself I would rather not be here at all.’

That afternoon a specialist came to see me about the damaged finger on my remaining hand. She was irritatingly upbeat. ‘Don’t worry, Andy,’ she breezed. ‘We can save your finger. But you won’t be able to use it for at least two weeks.’

I think she might have been expecting me to burst into a round of applause at the news. Instead, I had a bit of a fit.

'I’d decided that I wanted to ask Claire to marry me. And I wanted to do it properly, on bended knee'

‘F*** off!’ I shouted at her. ‘Why don’t you just cut it off?’ She looked taken aback. ‘I’ve had enough of bloody surgery,’ I continued. ‘What use would I have for my hand anyway?’

The specialist was hurt and upset. She apologised quietly and left  the room.

Thank God Claire was there to witness the whole thing and to tell me off in no uncertain terms. I started to cry, tears of grief and rage and despair. I was at rock bottom. I had no reserves of strength left.

The next day I said sorry to the specialist and had the operation to restore my finger. I’m so glad I did. I may never have the strength to be an Olympic boxer, but at least now I can hold a pint of Stella.

After that, my rehab started in earnest.

My first goal was Remembrance Day, when I was due to be reunited with members of my patrol.

I felt sad and guilty that I’d had to leave my men prematurely. I was still their commander, and I was desperate to see them again.

But the doctors told me that if I wanted to attend the Remembrance Day service then I would have to prove that I could get in and out of a wheelchair without any help. It was just the challenge I needed. 

I booked a physio session and  was told that a captain called Ann would be arriving the next day to teach me to sit up by myself. I decided to give her a surprise.

When she arrived and pulled back the curtains of my hospital bed, there I was, sitting up already. She seemed genuinely shocked. ‘Who helped you up?’ she said.

‘No one,’ I replied.

Living to the full: Andy has not let his disability prevent him from following his dream and even took the plunge on a skydive

True gent: Andy fulfilled his dream of being able to propose to Claire on one knee and the couple celebrated their engagement with a trip to Thailand

She stared at me. Just to make the point I flopped back on the bed then sat up again. She shook her head in disbelief.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Get in this wheelchair and I’ll meet you in the physio room.’

There, I was confronted for the first time with the sight of my whole body reflected in a full-length mirror. I saw for myself the stubby limbs and the sheer brutality of what was missing.

It was like looking at a tree that had been hacked at by vandals  looking for firewood. I felt sick.

I called off the session, went back to bed and sobbed myself to sleep.

But I made it to the parade in the end. Nothing would have stopped me. All my section would be waiting for me and I couldn’t let them down.

The last time we had all been together was less than a month ago, yet it seemed an eternity. I was close to tears and so were they.

I still don’t know how Claire held it together during those first few days and weeks. ‘A lot of girls would have been off like an escaping greyhound as soon as they heard that their boyfriend had been so badly injured,’ my cousin Karl said bluntly. ‘But not Claire.’

Claire herself admitted that her main worry when I very first came round from the morphine was that I wouldn’t want to be with her any more, and would send her away! She told me that when she first saw me she had never felt such a rush of love in her life.

That was when she knew that nothing, not even my horrific injuries, would ever stand in the way of us being together. 

I had to get better and be strong for her. I had to be back on two legs again. And the best way to do this was get myself to Headley Court, the Forces’ centre for the fitting of prosthetic limbs.

I was determined to be able to march with my regiment (3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment) in July, six months away, when our colonel in chief, the Duke of Wellington, would present our Afghan campaign medals.

Over six weeks at Headley Court, I learned how to walk again. My left leg had been amputated above the knee and for that I was given a metal leg fitted with a shock absorber. For my right leg, which was amputated below the knee, I was fitted with the absolute Rolls-Royce of artificial limbs.

Happy family: Andy, with Claire and son William, has taught himself to ride a bike and is even running using prosthetic blades

Made in Sweden, they employ Bluetooth technology linked to a computer. If I stumble, it will automatically adjust to help me stand upright again.

The day of the parade, July 9, was a scorcher. The sun blazed down as I proudly marched out with the other members of my section.

One of my mates followed behind me with a wheelchair just in case, but I made it by myself, in my desert combats, with my beret on. It was a great feeling being out there on my new legs less than a year after losing both my original ones, in front of Claire and my parents.

There was something else I needed the staff at Headley Court to help me with. Something deeply personal and heartfelt.

I’d decided that I wanted to ask Claire to marry me. And I wanted to do it properly, on bended knee.

The problem was, I only had one knee, and getting down on it was tricky. But not as tricky as getting ba ck up. To do that I needed a leg that would flex and let me push my body up off the ground.

Prosthetic legs are not really designed with aspiring fiances in mind. But the physios at Headley Court weren’t about to be defeated by a simple problem like that.

And so on August 7, 2010, with lots of help from them â€" hours of training to strengthen my muscles and improve my balance â€" I finally managed to pop the question, down on my knee like a true Romeo.

Claire and I were married in September 2011 and our wonderful little boy William was born on November 30 last year. He’s only three months old, but already I can’t wait to take him to his first rugby game. 

Claire and I talk often about the difficulties that will face us as we raise a family. About the things I’d never be able to do, like throwing my kids up in the air and catching them, or playing with a ball in the park. All the stuff m y dad did with me.

But there is plenty I can offer as a father. Like a loving family home, good values and lots of attention.

Over the past 12 months I have learned to ride a bike. I look forward to teaching William when he is old enough. And I do plenty of swimming and running around on my blades.

I’m confident that on sports days, I’ll be able to give the other dads a run for their money.

Extracted from Standing Tall by Andy Reid, published by John Blake at £16.99. ©?Andy Reid 2013.

To order a copy for £13.49  (p&p free), call 0844 472 4157.