Tri-Service
Seriously Injured Army Veterans Find Love
Two of Britain’s most seriously injured young veterans have found love.
Former sergeant Rick Clement and corporal turned TV celebrity Hannah Campbell from “The Island with Bear Grylls” are in a new relationship.
Rick suffered catastrophic injuries in Afghanistan, losing his legs and his ability to have children, while Hannah had a leg amputated after serving in Iraq.
The road to recovery has been difficult for them both.
Rick’s injuries left him facing the rest of his life in wheelchair. He married his girlfriend Leanne Isaacs, but the dynamics of their relationship changed, and they split.
Rick threw his energies into learning to walk on prosthetic legs - a challenge made more difficult because his amputations were so high - and he succeeded in laying a wreath at the Blackpool Cenotaph last November.
Meanwhile, he was trying to deal with the fact he would probably never be able to become a father because of his injuries, and he resigned himself to being single.
But after Hannah was forced to leave the TV show “The Island with Bear Grylls” because of her PTSD, she and Rick got together.
Her path to happiness has been complicated, in the nine years since her injury.
In June 2007, Hannah, who had recently become a mother, was deployed with the Royal Artillery’s 47 Regiment, in Basra.
She was on sentry duty when insurgents opened fire and hit the building she was guarding with a mortar bomb.
Hannah was buried under tonnes of rubble, and it took US Special Forces two-and-a-half hours to dig her out.
As they finally reached her, she had a heart attack, and was in a coma for three weeks.
Her injuries were horrendous. She had been partially blinded in her left eye by a metal pole that had pierced her face.
A second pole had pierced the top of her leg. Her left hand was split in two and she suffered bleeding on the brain.
Her lower left leg and foot were also badly crushed and shattered.
Hannah needed plastic surgery on wounds to her face and had only 20 per cent vision in her left eye.
But her ordeal was far from over.
Three years of leg operations left Hannah in a wheelchair and virtually housebound.
Her weight soared from nine-and-a-half to 21-and-a-half stone, and she suffered badly from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Eventually, she made the tough decision for her left leg to be amputated - making her the only mother in the British Army to have lost a limb on the front line.
But complications left her fighting to survive. She spent nine days on life support in the Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham.
Unknown to Hannah, while she lay in a coma, Rick was brought into the same hospital, unconscious, and struggling to survive from his injuries in Afghanistan.
“Little did I know that in a couple of days I'd be lying in a coma in intensive care just a few metres away from a very special person who is now my girlfriend,” he said
But at that stage, they were yet to meet.
Six weeks after her surgery, Hannah was fitted with her first artificial leg. In March 2014, despite damage to her reproductive organs from the mortar attack, Hannah had a second baby.
But her health deteriorated following the birth, and she was hospitalised again with perforated stomach ulcers.
The illness took its toll on her relationship with long-term partner Anthony McMorrow, and they split.
Hannah then plunged herself into filming for “The Island”, using her army skills to lead the other contestants into organising shelter on the storm-battered island.
But a tropical tempest re-awakened Hannah’s PTSD, with the loud thunderclaps reminding her of the mortar bomb that had almost killed her in Iraq.
As well as her mental suffering, Hannah developed phantom limb pain, and inflammation of her stump, and had to be evacuated from the island.
But in May, things started looking up. She and Rick began a relationship - Rick’s first since Leanne left him in 2012.
Their new love blossomed as Rick marked six years since he was blown up in Afghanistan.
He said: “6 years ago today I was hit by the IED and cut in half. It's been a long recovery with the first year being hell but so much has been achieved too."
"I've swam with Great White Sharks, carried the Olympic torch, met my hero Sir Alex and even got to do a short speech in front of him."
Little did I know that six years ago I'd be lying in a coma in intensive care just a few metres away from a very special person that is now my girlfriend.”
They split their time between Rick’s home in Blackpool and Hannah’s in the Lake District, and although it is early on in their relationship, they have bought a French bulldog puppy together.
Rick and Hannah are due to bring him home in a month’s time, so they can nurture him together. For a couple who have been through so much pain, it’s a moment of joy they’re both looking forward to.
Hannah, too, has just become patron of the military charity, the Veterans’ Foundation, while Rick has been promoting ABF The Soldier’s Charity.
He recently abseiled down the Big One Rollercoaster at Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach to raise money for the charity.
Both Rick and Hannah hope to raise awareness of the many challenges facing those who have put their lives on the line, while serving their country.
In Rick’s own words:
“If the next 6 years are half as good as the last then we are in for a hell of a ride.”
Related topics
Join Our Newsletter
