Wounded medic Sally Clarke stayed to treat injured soldiers in Afghan ambush

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Wounded medic Sally Clarke stayed to treat injured soldiers in Afghan ambush



Times Online

(MoD/PA)



Lance Corporal Sally Clarke continued to assist wounded soldiers








An Army medic remained at the scene of an ambush in Afghanistan to treat seven injured comrades despite being wounded with shrapnel herself, it was revealed today.

Lance Corporal Sally Clarke, of 2 Rifles, ignored the shards embedded in her back after the Taleban attack and stayed to help her team.

Lance Corporal Clarke, 22, from Cheltenham, was on patrol south of Sangin in June when insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades over a wall as soldiers dealt with an anti-tank mine.

One soldier was hit on the back of his rucksack, the grenade bouncing off and landing in the middle of the patrol, who dived to take cover.

After two more explosions, Lance Corporal Clarke got up to find seven of her colleagues injured. The most serious casualty had extensive shrapnel wounds to the top of his legs and buttocks. She also had shrapnel in her shoulder and lower back. But she defied her own pain and set about treating the rest of her patrol single-handedly.

She said: “I ran to the most seriously injured first. Corporal Paul Mather had taken wounds to his left bicep and had very bad shrapnel wounds across the lower part of his body. One of the pieces of shrapnel had torn a fist-sized hole through his skin.”

She applied field dressings and a tourniquet, and then waited for the emergency response team to arrive.

Lance Corporal Clarke, who has served for three years, tended each soldier, then helped to move them to the helicopter landing site to be flown to Camp Bastion. Despite being entitled to get on the flight, she refused, insisting she would not leave the patrol without a medic.

She added: “I didn’t feel like my injuries were bad enough to go back to the hospital, particularly as I was the only medic on the ground at the time.

“I couldn’t leave them on their own. I came out here to support the troops on the ground and give them medical care when they needed it the most.”

She stayed on the ground and accompanied the rest of the patrol back to their base before later being treated by a doctor at a medical aid post.

An American A-10 aircraft and a British Apache helicopter provided close support to ward off the Taleban, following the surprise attack. Corporal Mather was also determined to continue his role as Forward Air Controller, even guiding the aircraft from his stretcher.

Lance Corporal Clarke is due home within weeks to visit family and friends.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...SS&attr=797093

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