(Sept. 2) - A British army combat medic put the safety of her comrades above her own in saving seven fellow soldiers in the aftermath of a grenade attack in Afghanistan.
Lance Cpl. Sally Clarke, 22, was serving with her patrol in the country's Helmand province when they came across a field mine. While waiting for a team to dispose of it, they came under a surprise attack from Taliban insurgents who fired a rocket-propelled grenade into their midst, according to Britain's Daily Telegraph.
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Military Heroes in the News
Lance Cpl. Sally Clarke, a British army medic, ignored the intense pain of injuries she suffered in a bomb blast to treat other soldiers wounded in the attack in Afghanistan. Despite her wounds, the 22-year-old Clarke refused an airlift from the battlefield so that she could remain with her unit.
Ministry of Defense
Ministry of Defense
After ducking for cover, Clarke realized that she had shrapnel wounds in her back and shoulder from the explosion -- and that seven fellow soldiers were also down with injuries.
Clarke immediately began moving from soldier to soldier, treating each for their wounds despite the searing pain from her own wounds, the Telegraph said.
The worst injuries were suffered by Cpl. Paul Mather, 28, who had serious puncture wounds in his arms, legs and buttocks.
"One of the pieces of shrapnel had torn a fist-sized hole through his skin," Clarke told the Telegraph. "I applied field dressings and a tourniquet to one of his wounds, while we waited for the Medical Emergency Response Team to arrive."
Clarke continued caring for all six other soldiers as well and even aided them in reaching a helicopter evacuation point. However, when it came time for her to take seat on the chopper and to get away from the battlefield, she refused on the grounds that the rest of the patrol required a medic and she couldn't abandon them despite her pain and injuries.
"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," she told the Telegraph. "I didn't want to leave them on their own."
Clarke later received medical attention and is headed home from Afghanistan.
For more on this story, check out the Daily Telegraph.
