The time spent waiting was the worst of their lives. They didn’t sleep; it was agonising waiting for the next piece of news to drip through. Once she knew I wasn’t flying home for forty-eight hours Mum decided to go into work, just to occupy her mind. She was so ashen that as soon as the head teacher saw her, he called her in and said, ‘I can tell by your face that something is terribly wrong.’
As soon as Mum told him, she was given time off indefinitely to help look after me, no questions asked. Meanwhile, Jamie had to get Milly up and break the news. He said: ‘Mummy is coming. She’s been hurt in an accident but she is coming back to see us.’ Afterwards he told me that it was gutting to try and prepare her, while not scaring her about what was going on.
I remember nothing of the ten-hour flight back to RAF Brize Norton, apart from briefly stirring and being patted on the hand by my nurse. As I was wheeled off the plane I woke up again. Being back on British soil felt so good as I knew I was finally safe, but I was desperate to see my family and I was disappointed they weren’t standing there on the airfield, waiting for me. An ambulance was instead waiting on the tarmac and I was taken, with sirens blaring, to Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham and put into a side ward as I was the only woman soldier injured at the time, and hooked up to countless machines.
I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror since the field hospital in Iraq and I was scared as to what everyone would think as I knew I was a mess with thirty stitches in my face and my leg so swollen, cut and bruised that I couldn’t even bear a sheet touching it. Doctors had to work on me first, checking all my vital signs, plugging me into machines and drips of antibiotics and pain relief, and generally sorting me out.
Jamie walked in first with Milly. The left-hand side of my face, which was swollen and full of stitches, was the nearest to the door and as she toddled into the room, she didn’t recognise me. That was gutting.
‘Milly, it’s Mummy,’ I said. It broke my heart that she didn’t know who I was. As soon as she heard my voice, though, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared. I nearly started crying because instead of running to me like she always did, she was scared because I looked so horrific.
I coaxed her by saying: ‘Milly, don’t worry, it’s Mummy.’
She clung on to Jamie, who said: ‘Don’t worry, Mummy’s a bit poorly but she’ll be OK. Let’s say hello.’
Finally, she came up to me and gingerly got up and lay next to me on my hospital bed. I’d dreamed of the moment I was going to see her when I got back from Iraq; she’d be in the crowds, waving a Union Jack and smiling, but this was nothing like that. Jamie was a rock, saying no matter what, he was there for me and we’d cope and face everything together, which reassured me, but Milly’s reaction knocked me for six as it brought home to me just how bad things were. But I didn’t cry because I knew I had to be strong for her, so we took some photos of me in bed next to her. In them, Milly’s eyes are wild and terrified. It took her a week to come up to me without being scared, and even when I look at those photos now I feel not only devastation but above all guilt that my child went through that.
Once we’d spent some time together, the next person I desperately wanted to see was Mum and I got so distressed that I rang her, saying, ‘Mum, where are you? You said you’d be here.’
She was frantic as she’d been held up in heavy traffic on the M6 and when she finally arrived, I started crying as she hugged and kissed me, saying: ‘Hannah, I’m so relieved you are still alive.’ She put her hand to my cheek and said: ‘Hannah, you are going to be alright.’ That’s one of my strongest memories, as I desperately needed to hear those words from her.
Within hours I went down for surgery for the shrapnel wounds to my face and all my abdominal wounds, but because my foot was so mangled, they needed to let the swelling go down for at least two weeks before they could operate on it. Before I was taken down, Mum popped out to get a cup of tea and she was white when she came back.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘I had to walk through the hospital and ward and it was the first time I have ever seen so many young amputees.’ Everything I had been through was hitting home, mixed with her relief that I was still there.
The next few days were gruelling as I had so many injuries a team of doctors, led by an extraordinary man, Professor Keith Porter, who was later given a Knighthood for his work, had to work through each and every one. There was barely a part of my body that hadn’t been affected in some way by the blast. From the moment I’d arrived in Selly Oak I’d become aware that my hearing wasn’t right and things were muffled, and also my vision was obscured. It’s impossible to treat everything at the same time when you’ve suffered so many injuries, so doctors have to prioritise and treat the most serious first. I’d perforated both my eardrums, was left with just 20 per cent vision in my left eye due to retinal damage, a shattered foot, permanent nerve damage, a high-velocity shrapnel wound in my abdomen, facial scarring, a moderate brain injury, multiple flesh wounds that required surgery, a ripped-apart hand, a pole through my leg and face and countless other shrapnel wounds.
Each passing day seemed to bring a new diagnosis, so my list of injuries kept growing and growing. There were so many it was hard to keep track and to process exactly what I’d been through. They did an amazing job on my wounds. One surgeon had to do extra stitches in my face and he said to me: ‘Whoever did this in Iraq did a wonderful job.’ He promised his stitches were going just as well and he was as good as his word. My hand was heavily bandaged after they stitched it all back together and they also made it as good as new.
Jamie, Mum and Dad were just overwhelmed with relief that I was still alive but I was in deep shock as it slowly dawned on me how lucky I had been with such a huge number of wounds. I slept, on and off, for days due to the painkillers. I was overwhelmed by exhaustion as my body fought to recover, seeing only my family, who were my line to the outside world, making me laugh and giving me little snippets of gossip, which gave me respite from my pain.
I had a phone by my bedside and when it rang, four days later, I almost thought I was dreaming. When a male voice said: ‘Hannah, it’s me,’ I had to think for a second about who was on the line. ‘It’s John,’ he continued and I realised then it was John Lewis, with whom I’d swapped guard duty in Iraq. From the moment he’d heard I’d been blown up, the day after it happened, he’d been worried sick and I was so pleased to hear him, although I was drugged up to the eyeballs on morphine.
He asked me how I was and when I admitted: ‘I’ve been better, but I’ll get there,’ he became quite choked up.
He said: ‘I’ve got to say this to you, Hannah, I’m just so sorry as I know this shouldn’t have happened to you. I feel so awful that you did such a good thing for me and now this has happened.’
I said: ‘John, there’s absolutely nothing to feel sorry for’, and I meant it. I’ve never regretted swapping guard shift as he was a good friend to me, and that’s what you do in the Army – you look out for your own. No one in the British Army was to blame for what happened; the blame for what happened to me fell squarely at the feet of the insurgent who fired the mortar that blew me up. I hate him. Everyone has free will and he could have chosen not to do it. I still feel anger that he’s out there somewhere with no idea of the destruction and pain he has caused.
Mum, Dad, Jamie and Milly were constantly by my side during those first days. So they were as delighted and touched as me when, later that day, I also had a really special visitor who instantly had me in floods of tears, or ‘bubbling’ as he’d say. Karl, who’d pulled me from the rubble in Iraq, knocked on the door to my room and limped in with a big smile, carrying a huge teddy bear. Just the sight of him set me off, partly out of relief that he was OK. He was pretty battered from the blast; he’d suffered some serious shrapnel wounds and seeing him again took me right back to the moments beforehand when we’d shared a cigarette and had a laugh. It seemed a lifetime ago and neither of us had had any idea
of the impact those few seconds would have on our lives. I realised it must have been him that I’d seen on the plane as he said he’d come back at the same time as me. He’d tried to see me several times, but each time I’d either been in surgery or asleep.
He said: ‘I’ve been worried sick and I’m so, so sorry.’
I started crying really hard as I said: ‘Thank you for getting me out of there’, for Karl was the man who saved my life. He was so close to losing his own life that day and even though he’d also been badly wounded by shrapnel, he still dug me out of the rubble. It was an heroic act, and for me, Karl is an incredible man. From that moment on I always felt a special bond with him because he was the only man who had a real insight into what happened and we both suffered in the aftermath.
Mum then asked to speak to him for a moment outside my room. As they stood on the ward outside, she told him: ‘Thank you for pulling my daughter out and getting her home to me.’ Karl also gave Milly the teddy bear, which we still treasure to this day. It meant a great deal that he had come to see me as I’d wondered how he was and to this day I feel such immense gratitude that he pulled me from what would otherwise have been my grave.
During those first six weeks I had so many operations I lost count. They ranged from minor extra stitches to my face and smaller wounds under local anesthetic to major operations on my hand. Surgeons also continued to clean out shrapnel injuries on my abdomen and leg, and pump me full of nuclear-strength antibiotics. I was in a cycle of surgery, recovery and then I’d have another procedure. I was pretty out of it a lot of the time as I was taking all kinds of drugs and I wasn’t really engaging in life. It was like I was in a bubble: distant from everything with the painkillers and other drugs acting as a warm, fuzzy cushion from reality. To be honest, that was a blessing at the time.
I also underwent scans for the bleed on my brain. As soon as I could manage it, I was attached to a special machine that sent ice down to a custom-made boot, which was used to try to reduce the swelling of my foot so they could operate. After three weeks they decided they would try to operate on it for the first time. I was full of optimism that they could put things right, but it wasn’t to be.
Afterwards, my surgeon said he had to be honest and that he was gravely concerned. ‘Your foot is terribly injured and while we will try everything we can, there’s no guarantees about what the future holds,’ he told me.
In my head amputation was not even in the equation and I was prepared to go to whatever lengths were necessary to save my foot and leg. When I told him that, he nodded and promised he’d try everything and explore every avenue possible for me. He warned that it would be a long haul with no guarantees of success, though.
While I was in hospital I managed to go short distances on crutches and when I finally got out of my side room, I saw some of the guys who had lost limbs or had suffered terrible burns and I was relieved I didn’t face the same as them. They were absolutely amazing and they would whiz around the corridors of Selly Oak, getting on with it, but I remembered the doctor’s words at Basra’s field hospital and thought: ‘I’m glad that’s not me.’ I still thought I was going to be OK in the end and the failed op was a temporary blip.
After six weeks, with the exception of my foot, my other injuries had healed well enough for me to be discharged home until surgeons could operate again to try and pin my foot back together again. The bones were all floating around and they struggled to find an anchor to piece parts together again. On the morning I was discharged home I was ecstatic. A nurse helped me pack up my toiletries, magazines and loads of ‘Get Well’ cards I’d received. Raring to go, I was ready long before Jamie arrived to pick me up.
As soon as I arrived home my bubble of excitement burst. I couldn’t even get down the stairs without him supporting me and once I was out of the cocoon of the twenty-four-hour care at the hospital and back at home, my life fell apart. Somehow I was supposed to use crutches to get around but I couldn’t manage and so I became housebound, able to do little more than move from room to room, permanently in terrific pain.
I wasn’t provided with a proper wheelchair because I hadn’t been categorised as officially disabled yet as I still had both my legs. Normally, things like that are sorted out by Headley Court, the rehabilitation centre, but I never made it there for years as I was always having an operation or recovering from one. So basically, I slipped through the net. After two weeks, things were so desperate that Jamie asked the Red Cross to donate me a wheelchair.
The truth is I didn’t want to be in a wheelchair full stop, and I was proud so I didn’t want to ask for a handout. Jamie persuaded me ‘needs must’ and so I swallowed my pride as the situation was desperate. I told myself I wouldn’t need it for long but as the wheelchair was so old and the house wasn’t properly adapted I couldn’t get it over the steps to get outside unless I hobbled up the stairs on my crutch and Jamie carried it out for me and then pushed me where I needed to go. We also had to move the furniture and I scraped the paint off the walls in the hallway with my wheels. Being sedentary meant I ballooned and my weight crept up from nine stone towards my peak weight of twenty-one-and-a-half stone within months.
The Army were great at supporting me financially and within months I received a compensation payment for my initial injuries. I was still on full Army pay, although I was on long-term sick leave, and it enabled me to pay off my credit cards and debts as well as put down a substantial deposit on a house in Winchester, which I planned to move into when I completed my Army career.
But in other ways, things initially weren’t so good.
I was on two strong opiate drugs, oral morphine and fentanyl lollipops, which are normally given to terminal cancer patients to help ease their pain. The only time I’ve seen someone else use them is in the pictures taken when reality star Jade Goody was dying from cervical cancer. They are supposed to be much stronger than the morphine and I used them for a quick burst of pain relief when the morphine wasn’t working. You let them dissolve on your teeth and your gums – they make you feel like you’re not really there.
I wasn’t functioning as when I wasn’t consumed by pain, I was off my face on the drugs and I could barely look after myself, never mind be a mum. The most painful thing of all is that I became redundant as a mother. I was in so much pain, I couldn’t lift Milly, I couldn’t take her to the park or nursery; I couldn’t even give her a bath or put her to bed. Jamie had to do it all, and in addition to everything else he became my carer. He’d get home from work, take off his jacket and then he’d start all over again. It was a living nightmare. I’d force myself to manage the toilet on my own but I could only have a bath when he was in the house. I’d always loved a good soak with bath oil and candles and at first I was so determined to try and help myself that I used to drag myself in and out of the bath even if it took hours, as I didn’t want to be completely dependent on him. Other times, I was in so much pain I had to let him help me get in and out, and he’d even help towel me off while I kept my balance on my one good foot, holding the sink. I used to love relaxing in the shower as well, but I couldn’t take them because I couldn’t stand up anymore. No woman wants to ask her partner ‘Please can you help me take a bath’, and I found all the little losses of independence that were mounting up extremely hard to bear.
He did all the housework, dusting, hoovering and ironing, even doing the dishes as I sat there and watched him helplessly, hating every minute. I couldn’t reach the hob, so he cooked. We put the kettle on a coffee table so I could make myself a drink without the risk of tipping scalding water down myself, but that was about the only thing I could do independently. One thing I could do for myself was crawl upwards on my knees and slide downstairs on my bum, holding my injured leg out in front.
Besides that, Jamie helped me to get dressed and undressed, peeling my skirt over my head so it didn’t touch my leg. I lost my dignity at that point. To Jamie’s credit he never once complained. He was my rock and I realise
now how strong a man he is to have managed. But I didn’t cope at all, instead feeling embarrassment, shame and anger that I was now completely dependent on him. Over time our relationship as husband and wife began to slowly erode, but I was too wrapped up in my own selfish bubble of misery to even notice.
Every night he’d cuddle me until I fell asleep but I totally lost my confidence and wondered how he could ever find me attractive at the size I was. I felt a failure not only as a wife but also as a mother as my life consisted of sitting in the house staring at the four walls or crawling around while I waited for my next operation. At first I’d crawl upstairs when Jamie was giving Milly her night-time bath, thinking even if I couldn’t help, at least if I was there watching and talking to her then I was a part of it. As I sunk deep into a depression, I didn’t even bother to do that anymore. Instead I’d sit downstairs. I didn’t even cry that often – I just felt numb with it all.
On top of everything I started to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Night after night I’d cower underneath our bed screaming, convinced I was in the middle of a mortar attack. Luckily toddlers sleep like the dead and Milly never woke up. Later she often heard me screaming in pain, but Jamie and I protected her from the worst of my PTSD. Even though I was in the grip of it, my maternal instinct to protect her remained strong. To me the nightmares would seem completely real and even though I was in my bedroom, I’d be convinced I was back in Iraq.
During the daytime, whenever I was alone, I developed an obsession about watching videos of explosions in Iraq on YouTube. Hour after hour, I’d replay them again and again. It was like a form of self-harm; it would trigger me into reliving the horror of being buried alive in the rubble. I also became hyper-aware of Milly, convinced there was some unknown and unseen threat that would hurt or kidnap her. Unable to switch off the adrenaline, I was constantly in a state of fight or flight.
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