Private Neil McCallion was evacuated to the UK after suffering serious injuries in Afghanistan. He talks about the attack and rebuilding his life.
Private McCallion, 24, from Dunbartonshire, Scotland, wriggles the thumb and fingers of his left hand and shows how he can close them in a gentle grip. "That's the most I've been able to move my fingers in ages," he says. "After the incident I thought they wouldn't be able to save my hand."
The incident was a suicide bomb attack in Kabul on September 4 2006, the day after his 22nd birthday. Private McCallion had been in Afghanistan for five weeks with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. At 6am, a convoy set off to give water, stationery and clothes to schools.
"The kids were so excited to be getting stuff from us soldiers," says Private McCallion. He and his friend, another private, were on top cover. This means they were standing in the lead vehicle, a Land Rover, and watching the roads. As the convoy left the second school of the day, Private McCallion felt a thud.
Cold and numb
"We skidded as a 4x4 vehicle came out of a side street and rammed into us. My friend shouted at it to get back as I turned and lifted my machine gun. Suddenly there was a loud droning noise and everything went black, then white. It felt like I was in a washing machine."
The explosion blasted Private McCallion's Land Rover on to its side, dragging him along the road. He felt a cold numbness in his left hand. "I saw a six-inch piece of metal sticking out of my hand. It was a mess," he says. "My index finger was hanging on by a wee white string, a tendon. I had to grab my hand and hold on to it."
There was shouting and the smell of burning as he ran, dazed, into a side street, and collapsed.
"Everything was in slow motion," he says. "I opened my eyes and saw blue sky, and heard my sergeant shouting ‘Half pint!’, which is my nickname on account of my size." Private McCallion managed to get up and run to the convoy. His friend had been killed.
Urgent medical care
Private McCallion was stabilised in a Kabul field hospital and flown to the UK that night, dosed with morphine and drifting in and out of sleep. "I was worried about my friend. I knew he'd passed away and I couldn't stop thinking about him."
In the UK he went straight into surgery at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham, an NHS hospital with a special area for treating injured service personnel. Surgeon Garth Titley removed all the damaged bone, tissue and shrapnel from the hand, leaving it empty in preparation for repairing it.
When Private McCallion woke, his parents were by his bed. "It was good to see them. I think they were relieved I wasn't more seriously injured," he says.
Since then, he has had multiple operations, including one two weeks after the attack that used ribs, muscle and skin from his torso to rebuild his hand.
These pictures show Private McCallion's hand before and after reconstructive surgery.
With encouragement from his surgeon and nurses, Private McCallion realised his hand would improve. Four weeks after his injury he managed to move a finger for the first time. It felt like a huge achievement. "I called out to my parents that I'd done it. I was so excited. It was the next step towards recovery."
Rehabilitation
Since then a couple of setbacks have delayed Private McCallion's recovery by around 18 months. The ribs broke when he leant on his hand after his sixth operation, and a later fall snapped the titanium plates that were used to mend them. But with surgery and rehabilitation, including stretching elastic bands with his fingers, he is making good progress.
For five weeks in early 2009 his hand was temporarily attached by a flap of skin to his lower abdomen so that the blood supply could help regenerate skin on the back of his hand.
Despite his restricted hand movement, he has passed his driving test and still walks his dogs when he's at home with his girlfriend in Dunbartonshire. He's looking forward to the day his hand is strong enough to go fishing again on Loch Lomond.
Private McCallion has had to cope with the psychological as well as physical effects of the blast. In a split second he lost a friend and the job he loved. He says regular sessions with a psychiatrist have helped a lot, allowing him to learn to feel safe. On his first trip to the shops he felt sick and terrified. "I was on red alert and thought I was back in Afghanistan," he says. "Now I've got used to it and although I'm still on red alert sometimes I can deal with it."
As well as support from the military, NHS, family and friends, Private McCallion says contact with the battalion he left behind has really helped him. "They sent me letters, parcels, jokes and sweets, and came to visit me when they could," he says. "I went to visit the battalion once when they were back here and it was brilliant. I've been away for two and a half years now and I really feel it. I’d go back tomorrow if I could."
