It's a small world - Casualty I helped in Iraq '07 in national paper!

[+ianh755 196]

Bloody hell, I was one of those who helped dig her out - Glad to see she's doing OK.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2130051/Now-mummy-Soldier-blown-Iraq-reveals-losing-leg-meant-mother-again.html

 

There's a few details wrong (it was a rocket not a bomb as it was on the Basrah airbase - the COB - and there was no gunfire before hand) but overall it's about right. My mate Dave Kemp was stood in the doorway of the guard shack when it hit and got blown out of the door and had a chunk of shrapnel hit him in the shoulder. They were lucky that a fridge full of water bottles which was also blown up which put out any fires before they could catch.

 

Here's my pics taken a day later whilst we drove into work -

 

 

Edited April 15, 2012 by ianh755

[MigBuster 2,884]

Pretty horrific injuries she sustained - is that the first you heard she was okay?

[+ianh755 196]

We knew she'd survived from visiting Dave who was in the same hospital as her but I thought the leg was lost in Basrah rather than back in the UK. As bad as it sounds we were being hit alot back then with pretty high amount of casualties which is, I'll be honest, why I didn't recognise her even as I was reading the story. It wasn't until I saw the pic of her injured face with her head wound that I remembered who it was. The SF guys really deserve all the credit though, although we got there a few minutes before them (I was in an Internet cabin about 50m away) their 1st aid was much more advanced then anything we could do and they kept her going for the 10mins or so until the ambulance/doctors etc could get to her.

Edited April 15, 2012 by ianh755

[MigBuster 2,884]

What a nightmare - paints an uncomfortable picture of the base being under attack - were these Katusha style rockets?

[+ianh755 196]

The vast majority were 107mm, say about 70% with about 25% of 122mm and a very rare number of mahoosive 240mm ones. In a 4 month tour I did in mid '07 when it was a bit ridiculous we had around 1000 attacks averaging from 1 rocket to 30+ rockets a time (the lower end was the more usual). They moved all the A/C out of Basrah due to the damage being caused and brought US Apaches in from Baghdad to sort out the threat. There's a lot of vids on YouTube of us being hit to give you an idea of the Fun we had!