BBC News Broadcast-Badly injured Pair from 1 Royal Anglian on Road to Recovery Video

WHEN Private Matt Woollard stepped on a Taliban landmine in Afghanistan, his life was left hanging by a thread.

His right foot was blown off, chunks of muscle were stripped from his forearms and his heart stopped three times after he was airlifted to a field hospital.

Yet two years later, Woollard, 20, is preparing to return to the searing heat and dust of Helmand to settle what he regards as unfinished business. His lower leg has been replaced by a prosthetic limb and he is now in training to become the first British amputee to go back to the front line as an infantryman.

He could be deployed if he passes a combat fitness test. Theres no way this will stop me going back to Afghanistan, Woollard said this weekend. I want to get back into a rifle company and do what I was sent to do in 2007 — take the fight to the Taliban.

Despite the severity of his injuries, Woollard, a member of 1st Battalion, the Royal Anglian Regiment, walked without crutches 10 months after the explosion with the help of a carbon-fibre prosthetic limb.
Woollards plans to rejoin the fight are fully supported by army chiefs. The army is making sure I attend lessons every day to keep me current on weapons, tactics and so on, he said.

Although he has cheated death once, Woollards girlfriend Natasha, with whom he has a 10-month-old daughter, Callie, also backs his ambitions.

Tash supports me in what ever I want to do, he said. I want a career in the army and promotion. For that I need to be as fit as any man in the regiment. The combat fitness test is tough. Its an eight-mile tactical advance to battle in full fighting order, carrying around 30kg [66lb]. I know I can do it. Im determined to do it, the legs a good bit of kit and is up to the challenge, so theres no reason I shouldnt.

Douglas Bader is the most famous serviceman to enter battle after amputation. In 1931, he lost both legs in a plane crash and was discharged from the RAF two years later. On the outbreak of the second world war he rejoined the armed forces, served in the Battle of Britain, and shot down 22 enemy aircraft before crashing over Germany and being taken prisoner.

It is only recently that prosthetic limbs have progressed to the stage where soldiers can use them to fight on the front line without handicap. Woollards lower right leg was amputated in May 2007 after he stepped on an explosive device made from three anti-personnel mines wired together.

His unit, C Company, had been on an operation to destroy a Taliban trench system six miles from the hydroelectric dam at Kajaki.

The Taliban were co-ordinating attacks on us from the position so a plan was put together to take them out, Woollard said. The engineers went in and mined the trenches without even alerting the Taliban sentries. The explosion was massive and took a lot of Taliban fighters with it.

Id taken cover in a ditch and we were ordered to move out. We moved off in single file and I was in the middle of my section. I remember turning to my mate to say something and boom!, I was blown up into the air.

It all happened so fast, I was spinning around and landed on my stomach. I didnt know where I was injured because every part of me hurt like f***. My ears were ringing and everything went into slow motion. I could feel my heart thumping in my throat and my breathing was deep and slow.

My right foot had been blown off and most of the bones in the ankle and some of my boot had been smashed into the muscle of my left thigh.

I was peppered with shrapnel, stones and grit from head to foot, and chunks of muscle had been torn out of both my forearms. My body armour was blown to bits and the pistol grip and magazine were ripped off my rifle by the force of the explosion.

The officer in charge ordered everyone to freeze, the correct procedure after an explosion to ensure that nobody sets off a secondary device.

But the medic ignored him and sprinted straight towards me, Woollard said. He thought I was going to die unless he got to me and took a massive risk.

He applied tourniquets and field dressings while the lads cleared a path and then they stretchered me 3km to a vehicle rendezvous. I have never experienced pain like it. Morphine took the edge off it. It wasnt my foot that hurt most, which was a bit strange. It was my forearms that were in agony. I was evacuated by Chinook helicopter, my heart and breathing stopped three times apparently, once on the helicopter and twice in the field hospital.

Woollard was treated at Selly Oak hospital, Birmingham where his right leg was amputated halfway down his shin.

After 10 weeks, he transferred to the Headley Court rehabilitation centre in Surrey where he was fitted with a Re-Flex VSP bionic lower leg.

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