Rehabilitation

Helping wounded soldiers to rebuild their lives

In the deserts, mountains, fields and village alleyways of Iraq and Afghanistan, our soldiers have and are suffering terrible and life changing injury.

BLESMA helps our wounded who have suffered the loss of limbs, the use of limbs or an eye, to rebuild shattered lives and our rehabilitation programme shows them they can do amazing things – that there really is life after amputation.

Limbless soldiers, recently wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, are not only taught to walk again but to sail the Atlantic, to ski down mountains and to run in the Paralympics for the country they fought for.

This rehabilitation helps them to face the life ahead that can seem a daunting prospect.

Amputee helps amputee

As well as the physical achievements that help rebuild their confidence, a BLESMA Member, an amputee with a few years experience, mentors each BLESMA Member.

It is the fellowship of shared experience that enables them to face their anxieties and to see the way ahead more clearly.

Learning to ski, facing fears

Each year BLESMA takes limbless soldiers skiing in the Alps or the Colorado Rockies to help rebuild their confidence.

Adam Nixon is one Member who enjoys the challenge. In the spring of 2004 he was serving in Iraq when, an improvised explosive device detonated whilst he was on patrol in the town of Basra. The blast injured fourteen British soldiers but Adam bore the brunt of the explosion. He received emergency treatment in a Basra field hospital and was flown to the specialist Birmingham’s Selly Oak military hospital where he woke for the first time weeks later to see both his legs shattered. Adam spent the next two years of his life in hospitals and was operated on more than 20 times. His left leg was amputated.

Adam, who had previously completed ultra-marathons over distances of 70 miles and over found himself, at the age of 24, wheelchair bound and in constant pain and of course he also suffered stress, insomnia, flashbacks. But Adam believes he found a way beyond the nightmares that comes with that special BLESMA fellowship and in discovering skiing.

Building confidence

Through skiing Adam has realised that everything is possible if he puts his mind to it. “This is the most fun I’ve had in years. Until now, I’ve pretty much been a bum. I’ve stayed at home and festered, but I’ve had enough of dwelling on the past. I want to get going.”

Adam, with the help of BLESMA, has discovered mono skiing. He has a specially adapted ski with a bucket seat and this allows him to be as active as he was before the injury. Adam has discovered that life is worth living again – skiing is now one of the many things that gives him real satisfaction.

Sharing life experiences

Every year BLESMA takes a group of limbless ex-servicemen on expeditions such as the one that first put a smile back on Adams face.

BLESMA ski instructors, also limbless soldiers wounded in Afghanistan, Iraq and earlier conflicts, provide support and are an important part of the rehabilitation process. They act as mentors as well as teachers; they share their experiences as well as their skills.

See video of BLESMA skiing expeditions – wounded soldiers rehabilitation

Our boys, the injured soldiers we support

Sergeant Mark Sutcliffe, originally from Peterborough, remembers being on foot patrol in Iraq in July 2006.

Patrolling on foot in Basra was very much part of mixing with the Iraqi people and winning the ‘hearts and minds’; it was however a dangerous job. The insurgents’ favourite weapon, a rocket-propelled grenade, blew off his left leg and, as he recalls “For a split second, I saw my boot flying through the air with my foot in it.”

Mark was just 28 years old.

Lionel O’Connor, soldier and amateur boxer, remembers lying in the back of his patrol vehicle after being blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq. He had lost his leg in the blast, was bleeding heavily and there were the bodies of two dead soldiers lying over him. When the rescue party arrived his humour shone through, he joked to them “Have you ever seen a one legged boxer?”

Lionel was only 23 years old.

Help for wounded soldiers, sailors and airmen alike

Although it is largely soldiers that are injured in Afghanistan and Iraq, BLESMA is there for all injured servicemen who have lost limbs - and it also supports those who have lost an eye or the sight of an eye.

Servicemen and women in Royal Navy often carry out dangerous tasks whilst on operations.

Sub-lieutenant Alex Donnelly, was on patrol in his boat on the Iraqi waterways. An improvised explosive device that was hidden under a bridge blew up as the boat passed. The bomb was loaded with loose metal pieces to cause maximum damage to life and limb with flying debris; a favourite trick of the insurgents. Alex was lucky to live because four others on his boat did not survive. Alex was blinded and received severe damage to his skull that needed to be rebuilt with the use of titanium.

To this day Alex has some of the metal still in his heart. He was only 26 years old.

The injured soldiers we support have had their lives changed forever and have witnessed sights that we will never witness. No matter what your feelings are regarding the current deployments of British troops in Afghanistan, it is a sad fact that so many young men and women have been so seriously injured in such large numbers.

Severe physical injury and consequential disability can certainly lead to physiological trauma, but BLESMA’s support and its ethos of Member looking after Member in rehabilitation activity and in welfare support through life, really does contribute to a life fulfilled as many of our 600 surviving 2nd World War Members would testify.

To do all this for our boys suffering today, our wounded soldiers, BLESMA needs YOUR help to support.

See our rehabilitation with limbless soldiers in Colorado. See one member's recent success winning international sky diving competitions! 

So, if you would like to support our troops we would appreciate your help.

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