Fighting back from injury on the Iraq battlefield

He was crouching behind a wall with bullets flying over head in a fierce battle when he was hit be a rocket-propelled grenade.

“The only thing I felt was this painful screaming in my ears,” says the 43-year-old father-of-two. “We knew it was a grenade and we just ran like hell out of there.”

Although there was no obvious external damage other than some flash burns, Adam’s spine and vital internal organs had been severely damaged by the blast. Within hours his condition deteriorated rapidly.

“At first they thought I was in shock and then they realised it was more serious than that.”

His condition deteriorated so badly that he spent nine months in a spinal unit in Nottingham and was warned her may never walk again.

But Adam Douglas is not the type of man to be told he can’t do something.

He has spent the last eight years gradually improving his mobility despite constant pain and little bowel and bladder control. Recently he became one of the first people in the country to be fitted with a £20,000 bionic implant to his spine. It has helped reduce the pain and has restored his dignity.

“At the moment I feel like I am the Bionic Man. I’ve got implants in my spinal cord and two battery packs just above my buttocks.

“When I had first had the operation they had to leave wires sticking out to attach an external battery while they checked everything was working. A lot of the time during the operation I was awake as they needed to place these implants on my spine and make sure they weren’t damaging anything.

“I’ve got some new scars but it’s radically improved my quality of life. This application of the implants is one of the good by-products that can come from war.”

Adam said his “batteries” will need changing every five to seven years. Consultant urologist Neil Harris carried out the delicate 40-minute operation at St James’s Hospital in Leeds.

He said: “This relatively new technique is called ‘sacral neuromodulation’. In layman’s terms, there is an electrode that we put into the tail bone – the sacrum. The pacemaker is connected to this and generates a current to that electrode and into the nerves that supply the pelvis. This changes the way the nerves supply the pelvic organs which are important for bladder and bowel control.”

Mr Harris, who served as a medical officer with The Light Dragoons before becoming a surgeon, said: “For veterans who have sustained spinal injuries resulting in bowel or bladder problems this is a technique we should be offering.”

Adam has recently gone back to full-time work for NHS Leeds and has also set up a charity, Forgotten Heroes, inspired by the lack of support he felt his wife Maria got when he was injured.

“As a soldier you do get help, support and recognition, but there is nothing for the carers, the majority of whom are women. I wanted to do something about that.”

Sitting in the front room of his comfortable home in Leeds, having just returned from work there is little to show the trauma Adam has been through. He still walks with a stick and takes 16 drugs a day, which he hopes will gradually reduce thanks to the implant.

There is no hint of bitterness although he does believe more could have been done to help him and others who were injured at the start of the conflict.

“They say that things have been put right since I was injured and that the processes have changed, I just hope that is the case.

“We come under the Department of Work and Pensions which is just not fit for purpose. In 2005 the Government brought in the Armed Forces compensation scheme which would have made things far easier for us. We have had to battle for everything, even taking out loans to pay for adaptation to the house.”

Adam wasn’t even in the regular Army when he was called up. He’d left the Army in 1997 and was called up as a reservist aged 36.

“I was completely shocked,” he recalls . “As someone who had been a reservist for six years the chance of being called up was slim, but I was now being ordered to mobilise for a full-scale invasion.” Three weeks later Adam had crossed the demilitarised zone along the Kuwaiti border and was advancing into central Basra with his unit, the Royal Fusiliers, when they came into contact with Saddam Hussein’s best-trained troops – the Republican Guard.

It wasn’t long before Adam and a colleague found themselves cut off from their unit and engaged in an intense fire fight which resulted in the grenade attack.

“I was treated in a field hospital in Kuwait and it was then they X-rayed me and suddenly I was surrounded by people – I’d never seen so much brass.”

Within 48 hours he was on a plane back to a specialist hospital in the UK.

The first Maria knew about it was when she got a call from Adam. “I had my mobile phone and rang Maria. I said I was okay but injured and was coming home.”

After spending 18 months in hospital Adam returned to his home in Leeds, but life was difficult. “I couldn’t do anything for myself any more. I couldn’t dress myself, bathe, get up the stairs or walk any significant distance – in short, I was housebound for the next two years. If my wife hadn’t have given up her job to care for me I don’t know what I would have done.”

By 2007 his condition had improved following major surgery– he has had 35 operations in total, but his independence was still severely restricted and he could not move around the house with ease. “Adam was still a virtual prisoner in his own home,” explains Maria,

“He could only get up the stairs if I helped push him up which made him even more dependent on me.

“I just got on with it. I was working for Leeds City Council as a dinner lady. I was getting up at six in the morning, getting myself sorted, then getting Adam up.

“At that time I had to get him into the shower, wash where he couldn’t wash, get the kids ready for school, then go to work. We had no support from the Army.

“Thankfully we’ve both got good families who gave us a lot of help, otherwise I don’t know how we would’ve coped.”

Knowing this situation couldn’t continue, Adam and Maria looked to a stairlift to give Adam some of the independence he had lost.

After receiving funding from the local council, via the disabilities facilities grant, a Stannah stairlift was installed in 2007. The stairlift gave him the freedom to be independent in his own home.

“It really helped Adam start leading a normal life again after so many years,” explains Maria.

“He regained his independence within the home and that had a positive impact on his work, social and family life. It has not only given him more independence but it’s also given me more freedom and time to devote to the rest of the family.

“This helped bring our family, including our two young daughters, closer together and made Adam far happier.”

Another aid in Adam’s recovery has been his dog Spud. A rescue dog, the Douglases adopted Spud after the death of their old dog.

“He is amazing,” says Adam. “He just seems to know when I am having a bad time and has really helped.”

Adam’s youngest daughter Sophie has nominated Spud, for a Dog’s Trust devoted dog award and the family will find out soon whether the newest addition is to be honoured.

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