FLEX TIME “ E V E R Y T H I N G WA S U P S I D E D O W N ”
Wounded Hero Now Called to Carry Others By Mike Kennedy ’99
A
LL HE could hear was the faint humming of the 6.2-liter diesel engine. It was pitch-black and
eerily silent, the moon and stars blocked by low-hanging clouds. The clock read 4 a.m. in Balad, Iraq, as his Humvee lumbered down a dark dirt road. Staff Sergeant Dan Nevins, leading his combat team on a 72-hour counterinsurgent operation in the Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, bowed his head in prayer as he did before every mission. The moments of silence, however, were quickly destroyed by the blast of an IED detonating beneath the 18,000-pound vehicle, sending the truck six feet into the air in a ball of fire.
“In every way I defined myself as a man, it was over. I couldn’t lead my team in combat. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t walk. I could barely breathe.”
Nevins was ejected from the
leg below the knee. His right leg, severely damaged, was saved — for the time being. The next day, he arrived in Germany, where he stayed for seven days of surgeries before a
wreckage, his legs remaining
painkiller-free, utterly agonizing
caught in the twisted and burning
Class Mike Ottoloni, who had
and jabbing an IV into his arm. His
flight to Walter Reed Army Medical
metal of the floorboard and
made the ultimate sacrifice.
team, in great danger, secured the
Center, in Washington, D.C.
undercarriage. He vividly recalls the minutes that followed. “I couldn’t really see. My vision was blurry. I had a ringing in
Nevins was unable to sit up. He checked his head and his upper torso. His helmet disintegrated in his hands. He then reached down to his legs,
perimeter and worked to remove
In those initial weeks, Nevins
his legs from the burning truck.
was often alone, left with nothing
Still, Nevins hovered on the brink of death — and he knew it. “They say that when you’re about
but endless hours to think. “In every way I defined myself as a man, it was over,” he said. “I
my ears. My face was really hot,”
felt an arterial blood spurt — and
to die, your life flashes before your
couldn’t lead my team in combat.
Nevins said. “I had a sickening
began to make his peace with God.
eyes,” he observed. “Not for me. I
I couldn’t run. I couldn’t walk. I
remember thinking about all of
could barely breathe.
knot in my stomach and my mouth tasted like blood.
“I knew I was going to die,” Nevins said. “I was saying goodbye to my
things I was never going to do. I
“My everything was upside down.”
wife and 10-year-old daughter. I was
would never walk my daughter
than that, I didn’t want her to see
Nevins somehow gathered
giving up — losing all of my blood in
down the aisle.”
me. I was full of guilt, fear, doubt,
himself, the sparse light from the fire allowing him to see the horror of his surroundings. In the driver’s compartment of the vehicle, he saw his good friend, Sergeant First
04 | TIMES
this horrible place.” Then, Nevins had a realization: He was alive. The medic arrived, quickly applying a tourniquet to Nevins’ leg
Nevins was transported by helicopter back to his Army’s base in Iraq. After hours of surgery, he
“I didn’t want to see my wife. More
pain, and misery. I was broken, lying useless in a hospital bed.” He lay prone in that position, both
remembers waking up to the words
mentally and physically, until two
of a nurse. He had lost his left
men showed up at his door, visiting
OF BRUNSWICK • WINTER 2016
TOB Winter 2016 04-05.indd 4
1/18/16 6:07 AM