How I Rebuilt After Losing Three Limbs: Army Veteran Josh Boggi (E438)

Josh Boggi (0:03)

New Year's Eve 2010

We were getting ready to go out on a Dawn Patrol, threatening Afghanistan at that point. It had gone more from sort of conventional war fighting, you shoot, us, we shoot back, to IED's guerrilla tactics, putting stuff in the ground.

I took a step to my right, boom. My world was literally ripped out from underneath me. Next thing I know, I'm in mid-air, everything slows down, and then you land with the thud, and it's like, can't breathe, ears are ringing, dust in your eyes. I didn't realize it was me that had been injured. I woke up in Birmingham a week later. Yes, this has happened, but I'm not going to let that define me.

Damian Hughes (0:51)

Well, Josh, welcome to High Performance.

Josh Boggi (0:53)

Thank you for having me. Good to meet you both.

Damian Hughes (0:54)

And you. So let's rewind the clock if we can, which I'm sure in your head you've done many, many times over the years. New Year's Eve 2010, you're 10 days into a delayed deployment, and this is six weeks after the birth of your son.

Josh Boggi (1:06)

Ten days after he was born, I was back in Afghanistan on my third tour.

Yeah, New Year's Eve 2010, we were getting ready to go out on a dawn patrol. Our job was to support the Irish guards. We sort of planned to walk a mile down the road, take over a compound, leave some guardsmen in there so they could fight the Taliban, keep them occupied so the local village as such could just get on with its daily life. I remember the morning of, sort of you're all going through your drills, putting helmets on, magazines or weapons, cock it, making sure everything's ready, checking each other over, and just going through those normal, mundane skills and drills that you've been taught from basic training to where you find yourself today.

Damian Hughes (1:49)

You remember it all?

Josh Boggi (1:50)

I can remember it vividly. I think it's because it's programmed into your mind, like I'm going to do this, this, this, and you've sort of got a routine of getting your own kit ready, et cetera.

And then, yeah, the order comes over the radio. We're stepping off at the back gate. And my job at that point, we were as part of a Royal Engine research team. So the threat from, threat in Afghanistan at that point had gone more from sort of conventional war fighting. You shoot, as we shoot back to IEDs, guerrilla tactics, putting stuff in the ground. So, or it would lead to you would be shot at and you would naturally want to find cover. So you would jump in a ditch, for instance, and there would be an IED in there. So, yeah, so my job was just following the guy in front of me and the guy at the front of the patrol, a guy called Lamie Manney, he had a metal detector. He was walking along about 10 minutes into the patrol. Unfortunately, he stepped on an improvised explosive device. I remember that I can vividly remember the dust cloud coming out of the ground and instantly you knew what needs to happen. My job then and our team's job was to clear a helicopter landing site because at that point in Afghanistan you had something called the golden hour. If you could get someone from point of injury to a hospital within an hour, they had I think it was 94, 95% chance of survival. So the calls are going back to Camp Bastion. The medics are treating, we clear the helicopter landing site. The Chinook comes in, he gets thrown on the back, he's gone. We carry on.

Our role that day was clearing the compounds.

Damian Hughes (3:13)

Is that not a complete mindset shift for you that you've just seen one of your good buddies and one of your comrades blown up and has gone on a helicopter?

Josh Boggi (3:23)

I knew him before, but we weren't good buddies. We became good buddies post injury and recovering together. But at the time, it's like, excuse my French, but shit. Right. Shit, it's the fan. Guy's been injured and you just kick into that. Right. Before going on a patrol, there'll be a set of orders coming through and actions on, I don't know, IED strike injury. Engineer section, you clear the helicopter landing site. So instantly, you kicked into, I need to do this to enable him to be casu-backed back to Camp Bassian. And then once he's gone, that mine shift is, the mine shift shift was just, he's gone. Right. I need to now focus on what I'm doing on the guys that I'm working with on the task at hand. And we went straight into it. My role that day was mouse holeing. So putting an explosive charge on the side of a wall, not like a wall in the UK, these things are like three foot thick. So we're using anti-tank mines with plastic explosives, sort of mine tape to them, blowing them because we're avoiding doorways because they're vulnerable points. That's likely where the IED is going to be put when you're funneled into something. So I remember I've blown a hole and I've turned around and I've looked at the floor and all the wheat sprayed white lines on the floor, any color lines to mark a safe lane, a proven route. And they were all gone. And I remember looking over and calling one of the lads back to me and I took my tin of spray pan out. I took a step to my right, boom. My world was literally ripped out from underneath me. I had knelt next to it. I was a feet, two to three feet away from it. I'd put half a bar mine on a wall. I'd blown a hole. My threat level had gone from up there to down here. I've walked over this ground, took a step to my right and bang. Next thing I know, I'm in mid air, everything slows down. And then you land with the thud and it's like, can't breathe, ears are ringing, dust in your eyes.