The Biggest Challenge

Band of Brothers Complete the World's Hardest Race

The Race2Recovery team of injured servicemen have returned home after completing the Dakar Rally, the first ever disabled team to cross the finish line. This is what it was all about.

"I am just a normal bloke". They will all tell you this.

"I would rather have not have been blown up. My future looked boring and bleak and I could have just sat down, felt sorry for myself but I am not like that," mused Capt Tony Harris, a below knee amputee and founding member of the Race2Recovery rally team, formed to take on the world's most challenging race - the Dakar Rally.

The Band of Brothers have only been together for 18 months, made up of servicemen wounded in combat with injuries ranging from spinal and respiratory to a double and triple amputee. They may have have to accept they will never see frontline duties again, but they will never accept defeat.

"Our injuries do not define us, our ambition does" insisted Harris, 27, who was a Captain with A Company, 2nd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, when his life changed forever. In 2009 he was injured in an explosion while travelling in an armoured vehicle in the treacherous Sangrin district of Afghanistan.

"There was unbearable pain in both my feet when the blast went off beneath the wheel as we ran over an improvised explosive device. I was relieved my feet were still there," recalled Harris. The shock waves through the metal shattered his heels. He also broke his left elbow when the impact threw him sideways.

His left leg was removed below the knee 10 months later after a further battle with infection. "We just took the patrol on that path that day, but I never wanted that day to be the last exciting thing I ever did in my life," Harris explained. "The Dakar will give me back my competitive edge, the rush of adrenaline I missed, and a huge sense of achievement. It has always been about completing the Dakar."

Capt Harris is not alone, joined in the team by Corporal Tom Neathway, of 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment. A triple amputee he lost both his legs and an arm while on patrol in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan in 2008. He triggered an IED when he moved a sandbag in an Afghan compound to take up a firing position. The blast took off both his feet, infection leading to the amputation of both his legs and his left arm.

They met while recovering at Headley Court, the army's rehabilitation centre in Surrey, where they came up with the Dakar dream. An opportunity to do some rallying was the spark. Monies raised from the challenge will go towards Tedworth House, one of five recovery centres set up in partnership between the Ministry of Defence, Help for Heroes and the Royal British Legion.

"I had to put my work on the backfoot for a while as the training became a full-time job," joked Neathway. "We have been serious about this all along, and using maps, a compass and bearings is very smiliar to being in the military. It is the same sort of mindset and we all support each other. It is about looking for normality."

The Dakar Rally covers 9,000kms in 15 days travelling through Peru, Argentina and Chile in some of the most picturesque but dangerous territory on the planet with terrifyingly high sand dunes, altitudes of 4,500m and temperatures in excess of 50C.

The Race2Recovery team only have the finish in their sights to become the first disabled rally team to complete the distance which even the most seasoned drivers and teams have failed to achieve in the past. Around 40 per cent of the teams taking part are forced to retire before the end.

Corporal Philip Gillespie was on his third tour of Afghanistan when he stood on an IED which blew off his right leg below the knee and caused multiple injuries to his left. He marked his 23rd birthday recovering in hospital.

"I had stayed conscious after the explosion but they sedated me. When I woke up in Camp Bastion I looked down and saw the stump was bandaged. The soldier mentality in me was to fight back and get on with life," explained Gillespie, from 1 Royal Irish.

The Race2Recovery team will field a handful of vehicles - four QT Wildcats and one Renault Kerax Truck - in the rally, with a full support crew with non-military members offering their expertise in competition and as mechanics. The support crew will also have the expertise to deal with the sand, dirt and dust that could get into the soldiers' prosthetic limbs. The cars can also carry 380 litres of fuel - each stage can be up to 500 miles - along with spare tyres and plenty of water, essential in the scorching desert heat.

For one family the Dakar Rally has a different but equally emotive meaning. Trish Chapman's late husband George commissioned the QT Wildcat to fulfil his dream of completing the Dakar Rally, but sadly passed away before he could attempt it. Trish, her daughter Joanna and son Adam, have been the strongest supporters of the dream, becoming official partners through their Orange Plant company, allowing the use of their Wildcat, with Gordon's name on the vehicle, in the Dakar.

Their training has taken them from the sand dunes of the South West of England to Morocco as well as training with the Devon & Somerset Fire and Rescue Service advising on emergencies including how to extricate themselves from a car that has flipped in its side by cutting through the front screen with a saw, and how to operate fire extinguishers.

They were also taught about treating spinal injuries, airway management and emergency life support by the South Western Ambulance Service. Paramedic Steve Morgan was full of praise for the men. "Even though we were teaching them, we learnt a lot. This team has a great zest for life and wish to live it to the max. They have tremendous psychological strength to overcome any barriers, and enjoy the challenges put before them."

Harris said the team have to be prepared for anything, and everything. "It will be a real endurance test for the whole team. To have the maximum skills and resources at our fingertips as well as feeling confident and as capable as we can be, we will work closely together to get to the finish."

Navigator Neathway added: "This part of the training was vital to me as I now feel confident I can cut myself out of a rolled car. Just because I have lost my legs and arm does not mean I am limited in what I do. There are problems being disabled, but you have to push through them and set new boundaries.

"All the men in the team who have served their country now want a new challenge in their lives. This is it and from this will hopefully come new careers in motorsport, marketing, engineering. The opportunites are endless."

 

The Wildcat race vehicle, named Joy, with driver Matt O'Hare and co-driver Corporal Philip Gillespie completed the Dakar Rally. The three other cars did not reach the finish line.