I spent two weeks in a coma having been blown up while on foot patrol with 2nd battalion the Rifles unit in Afghanistan. “The doctors told my family if I came out of it I would be left like a vegetable. When I got back to my hometown I was forgotten about by the Army.
Keith and his family now volunteer for Beyond the Battlefield after he survived a Taliban explosion in Afghanistan that killed his interpreter. “I was walking along an alley and because I had a radio and antennae on my back I was visible above the wall,” he said. A guy on a motorbike detonated an IED (improvised explosive device) that had been attached to the wall. “I can still remember the explosion. My interpreter was killed immediately.” Keith spent two weeks in a coma and three months in intensive care. Doctors who initially treated him did not expect him to live but he defied medical experts to recover from his horrific wounds, although the mental trauma will never heal. “There were 87 men in my regiment who were seriously injured. We were all pensioned off and left to fend for ourselves,” Keith added. “I was in a really bad place until I found out about Beyond the Battlefield when I saw one of its stands in a shopping centre.” I had been to Combat Stress, British Legion and many others who did not help me at all……
Keith
