Tri-Service
Rick Rebuilt: A Soldier's Journey
Imagine stepping on a hidden enemy bomb. Imagine the damage it does.
In a heartbeat, you lose your legs. You suffer internal injuries so severe that you will never have children. You are rescued by military helicopter, but your heart stops twice on the way to hospital. You survive, but face an uncertain, challenging future. You are just 30 years old.
This is the story of Sergeant Rick Clement, of 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. Five years on, he plans to walk again, so he can lay a wreath on Remembrance Sunday.
Rick’s courage is jawdropping. As well as losing his legs and his legacy, Rick’s marriage disintegrated. He wed his girlfriend Leanne while he was still recovering from his injuries. She became his carer, as well as his wife. But the dynamics of the relationship changed, and Leanne left, after just a year.
Rick had no choice but to carry on. In his own words, “You crumble, or you just get on with it.” But learning to walk on new prosthetic legs is an exhausting and painful process.
Rick has just his arms and upper body to propel him; and he is a mass of scar tissue, inside and out. He desperately needs to get fit so he has the strength to carry on. But for someone like Rick, this doesn’t just mean a few sessions in the gym. Rick jetskis. At 80mph. In fact, he does it so well, that he’s planning to jetski 2500 miles around the British mainland. Solo, with no lower limbs to help him.
He swims as well. Not just a few lengths of the pool, but a mile in open water, with just his arms; one of which was seriously damaged in the blast.
In May, Rick celebrated five years since he was, in his own words, “cut in half”. He threw a party. He ordered a cake, specially decorated with dog tags and bombs. He invited the beautiful army medic who helped save his life. And he toasted the friends who died on the same tour of Afghanistan that almost claimed his own life.
It is them, and the 450 other soldiers that Rick wants to salute by taking some steps on Remembrance Sunday. There are no guarantees he will succeed. His progress has been painstaking. But this is a warrior with a core of steel. And if anyone can do it, he can.
Join us on Forces TV on Monday, 9 November, 2015, for Rick Rebuilt: A Soldier’s Journey, a 50 minute documentary on a soldier’s journey with a difference.
Pictures courtesy of Bryan Adams - Click to see more from his exhibition "Wounded: The Legacy of War"
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