Maybe Daniel’s shocking story will change your mind
This is the face of a young man who joined the army wanting to serve and protect his country, a young man whose flesh caught fire when he was attacked by his own side while serving in Iraq.
This is the face of a soldier who has had to rely on the help of the Royal British Legion after canada goose outlet reviews receiving no help, or even an apology from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Dan’s bid to sue the MoD for negligence has been thrown out because the MoD has “combat immunity”. But Dan has no such immunity from having his mind and body scarred for life.
Dan was protecting bridges on the outskirts of Basra, on March 25, 2003, when at 1am, he was taking a nap on top of his tank, and the worst thing that can happen to a soldier happened to him.
His Challenger II tank had been securing bridges on the cheap canada goose uk outskirts of Basra when the crew of another British Challenger II became confused, and fired a round at what they thought was an Iraqi vehicle, which missed Dan’s tank and landed in front of it.
The force of the round landing on the ground blasted Dan from the top of his tank, and set him alight from head to foot.
He recalls the horror of what happened next: “I heard my commander shouting ‘Roll yourself out, roll yourself’ out, and so I did,” he said.
“The commander had been in the tank with the driver, but was looking out at what had happened.
Dan was 22, canada goose outlet toronto factory and 80 per cent of his body was burned. His life had been changed forever and two of his friends had had their lives ended by the saddest and sickest of ways to be injured at war: friendly fire.
“I was still conscious, and lying on the floor when I heard an army ambulance, which is just a smaller tank, coming every official canada canada goose uk shop goose outlet soldier knows the sound they make,” he said. “The medics pumped me full of morphine and I passed out.”
He was taken to a US field hospital and 24 hours later was flown to the UK, where he was admitted to Broomfield Hospital, in Chelmsford.
“They woke me up on Mother’s Day,” said Dan. “Which was about three weeks after the accident. I started freaking out, as the morphine had given me some terrible dreams. I thought I had lost my legs.
“I was trying to get up and touch buy canada goose jacket cheap them, and my mum, who’s a nurse, started to say ‘Here are canada goose outlet store uk your legs, and your canada goose outlet canada arms, and toes, and you are Dan Twiddy, and you are buy canada goose jacket in hospital.’
“I said ‘I know who I am and I know where canada goose outlet nyc I am’ with some swearwords thrown in. They said: ‘Dan’s back.'”
Dan, of Conduit Road, Stamford, was in hospital for a month and a half, during which time he noticed that all of the mirrors in the room were covered with towels.
But when a nurse took him for a bath he decided to look at himself.”My face had been hit by shrapnel, and I had a flap of skin canada goose outlet black friday like a ball sticking out from my face,” he said. “Looking at myself set me back a lot.”
Some of the photos of Dan at that time are simply too shocking to print. The skin on his arms split, warped and peeled off and his head was a mass of thick black stitches.
As well as burns to his arms, legs and back, and shrapnel in his eye he also had a broken jaw, and had to have a metal plate put in his cheek. He lost the hearing in one of his ears for good.
The fire that had hit him canada goose outlet online uk and his colleagues had canadian goose jacket been anything but friendly. It had been life destroying.
And yet, sickeningly, neither Dan nor the families of the canada goose jacket outlet men who died in the tank that night, have been successful in getting the MoD into court over the disastrous events.
This week, Dan found out his joint bid with the dead men’s families to sue the MoD for negligence has been refused. https://www.zoetermeerinbeeld.nl “We were trying to sue them with manslaughter and neglect,” said Dan. “But I got a letter from my solicitor this morning saying that the MoD has ‘combat immunity’. This kind of thing happens in combat, apparently, and they aren’t responsible for it.
“The widow of the commander, who had two young sons will now have canada goose outlet in usa to make a civil claim if she wants to keep on Canada Goose Jackets making claims at all.”
None of the people affected by the accident have ever received a word of apology from the MoD.
Dan said: “At the commander’s inquest, the coroner said that he assumed we had had an apology from the MoD. When we said we hadn’t he asked the men from the MoD if they would apologise. They said they weren’t allowed to.
“And so the coroner apologised on their behalf.”
Dan is now 27, and has rebuilt his life, and skin grafts and surgery saved his canada goose face and arms, although he is still waiting for a further operation to balance the sides of his face.
He works as a self employed canada goose store plasterer. But he still canada canada goose outlet goose outlet new york city misses army life, and would go back tomorrow if he could.
“When I signed up aged 17 I wanted to go all the way,” he said. “I went to Bosnia, Cyprus and Kosovo before I went to Iraq, and I wasn’t afraid of anything happening. I was a soldier and I wanted to go to war. That is what soldiers are for.
“We knew that we had better equipment than the Iraqis, and I told my mum before I went that the only way I would get hurt was if another Challenger fired at me. I had no idea then that I would be right.”.