Safety lessons from a minefield
April 4, 2012 1 Comment
By Stuart Hughes
Stuart Hughes with his prosthetic leg which replaces the one blown off by a landmine in northern Iraq (BBC/Stuart Hughes)
Nine years ago to the day I was lying in a hospital bed, heavily sedated, as surgeons prepared to amputate my right leg below the knee.
A few days earlier I had stepped on an anti-personnel landmine near the town of Kifri in Northern Iraq, where I was on assignment for BBC News. In the chaos that followed the explosion the Iranian cameraman I was working with, Kaveh Golestan, tried to run for safety. Instead, tragically, he strayed further into the unmarked minefield, triggering two more devices.
