Transcript: Multiple casualties

Audio transcript

Corporal Paul Hartley:

I joined a ten-man party. We basically ran to where the incident had been. I’d got one casualty who’d been amputated above his knee on his right leg. We managed to get him patched up and everything fine.

As the rest of the party were leaving, another soldier stood on a mine, which then gave me two casualties. Another medic dealt with him. Everything was going OK. We’d been there about four or five hours at this time. The helicopter came and tried to rescue us, but couldn’t. And then another mine was set off injuring three more people. 

I made my way back to them to treat them, through the minefield, and as I got there another soldier stood on a mine, which then gave me seven casualties. Three were amputees, one was fatal, had two chest injuries, and I was injured myself.

I was scared. We’d run out of med[ical] kit, we’d run out of water. I had to use our t-shirts as medical equipment, things like that, use them as tourniquets. [unintelligible] just lost. But you've got to keep going. As a medic, you've got to stand at the forefront of everybody else. If you break, they’re all going to break, so you’ve just got to keep your head up and just get through it.