Millies 2017: Best Reservist

The Military Awards 2017 winner of 'Best Reservist' is Corporal Philip Keogh.

Alongside a nearly ten year civilian career as a paramedic, he has maintained a military career as a medic in the British Army Reserve.

Cpl Keogh was one of the first on the scene following the terrorist attack in Manchester in May 2017.

He says:

"I volunteered straight away to go to the scene."

"Some of my experience in the military and some of the injuries that I've experienced and treated in the military may help me."

The reservist was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, and treated battlefield injuries in Camp Bastion.

He says this experience helped during the Manchester attack.

"We didn't know what type of injuries we'd be looking at, but I had a fair idea from what I'd done in Afghanistan, and the consideration that if it was a bomb.

"You start doubting whether you are the right person, but then...the training definitely kicked in."

On the ground, Philip and other senior paramedics treated the injured and organised the evacuation of casualties to hospital.

Colonel Nick Medway served with Philip in Afghanistan, and is proud of how his former colleague reacted in the aftermath of the attack.

"That's the sort of thing that we are training our reservists to be able to do, to go that extra mile."

Philip is keen to share his praise with everyone who worked to help on that night in May.

"We performed as a team that night and as a team we were able to do, I hope, a good job," he says.

"I think the recognition should be towards everybody in the team, regardless of what uniform we had on that night."