A NURSE’S WAR DIARY ITU IN AFGHANISTAN Captain Jude Hadfield Age 32. Married ITU Nurse North East It was Christmas Eve and everybody was in a really festive mood. But that all changed when we got news that one of our lads was en-route after being blasted in a mine strike. He had suffered multiple traumatic amputations. He was saved but his injuries were horrific. It was as if somebody had just cancelled Christmas and that was something that was felt throughout the camp, not just in the hospital. It was a really low point, but it was also a sombre high point because I think that everybody felt honoured to just be there and to be able to give of our specialist skills to save this lads life. My deployment to Afghanistan at the end of 2007 was my first Operational Tour of duty. But I, along with my other TA colleagues, was given almost twelve months’ notice and so everybody including my employer had plenty of time to get used to the idea and to make preparations. Until I got there I don’t think that I knew what it was really going to be like. I remember flying into Kandahar - that was just surreal… We were flying
ARMY MEDIC Magazine
“It was as if somebody had just cancelled Christmas” on what felt like an easy-jet flight; of course we were all in uniform, but because of the threat of attack by ground-to-air missiles, half an hour before we landed, the cabin lights were turned off and everybody had to put on their helmets and bodyarmour. It was only then that I took a deep breath, my heart started pounding and I thought, my goodness this is it... After we landed we had a tactical transfer flight, this time in a Hercules transport plane and an hour later we finally arrived at Camp Bastion. I will always remember the Royal Marines who flew into Afghanistan with us. I will never forget seeing so many young lads preparing to go out onto Operations, well-trained and wellprepared Marines who were looking forward to doing the job that they had been trained for, but I had a sick
feeling in my stomach that came with the realisation that this is not a game, and I will never forget how I hoped that the faces that I remembered from our flight would not be the faces that I would see coming back into the hospital as casualties. For the first couple of days I felt quite lost and a little intimidated by my surroundings. There was so much activity on the camp and there were so many people walking around, all carrying weapons and all getting ready to go out on Operations. It wasn’t just the hospital that was having a change-over of staff, most of the Combat Regiments were changing over too. That first night, I couldn’t sleep for the sound of Chinook and Apache helicopters taking off and landing, they seemed so close and I remember thinking: Yep! I am definitely in Afghanistan… It’s not that I went there with any real expectations, but despite having seen the place in presentations, until I actually arrived, I could never have had a true appreciation of what it was going to be like. I shared my accommodation with seven other people. One of them was a Danish nurse who would be working with me in ITU. I only knew three of the girls and even then I didn’t know them
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