In the first half of 2010, 38 British troops lost limbs in Afghanistan-a nearly five-fold increase from the same period last year-according to official statistics. Separate figures, compiled by a charity for amputee service personnel, reveal that the number of its members with multiple amputations has overtaken the number with single amputations for the first time in the organization’s history.
According to an online article in The Guardian, figures from the Defense Analytical Services and Advice center (DASA), part of the Ministry of Defense, appear to reflect the surge in improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on British personnel in recent months. The statistics follow last month’s United Nations (UN) report that showed a 94-percent increase in incidents involving IEDs in the first four months of 2010 as compared to 2009.
The British Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association (BLESMA) General Secretary, Jerome Church, a former lieutenant colonel, was quoted in The Guardian as saying he believed the figures reflected the surge in violence, but also the medical care behind the rise in survival rates of severely injured personnel.”
Colonel Pete Mahoney, the deployed medical director in Camp Bastion from May to July 2009, said that despite seeing more severely injured personnel, they were surviving in greater numbers due to the level of medical care. He points to changes made to the “chain of care”-from the one in four combat troops whose medical training is geared to stemming catastrophic blood loss, to the medical emergency response teams tasked with recovering casualties in helicopters, to the build-up of experience gained by surgeons in the nine-year war-as being responsible for saving more lives.
“When a patient arrives at Camp Bastion, they have a consultant-led trauma team and a consultant-staffed surgical team waiting for them…,” Mahoney said. “People with very severe injuries in previous conflicts who might not have survived now have a much better chance of survival,” he concluded.
Although no official statistics are yet available for multiple amputees this year, DASA reports that in 2009, 55 personnel suffered the “traumatic or surgical amputation” of more than one limb, with 26 described as “significant multiple amputees.” That compares with 30 amputees in 2008, and 12 the year before.
