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First triple amputee from Afghanistan to survive injuries
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Since rehab and birth of his son, feels his life has improved
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Aims to cycle 3,000 miles round Britain’s coast for charity
By
Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 6:26 PM on 6th February 2012
A hero Royal Marine who lost three limbs after kneeling on an IED in Afghanistan begged a comrade to shoot him moments after the blast.
Brave Mark Ormrod, 28, was serving in Helmand Province on Christmas Eve in 2007 when the explosion ripped off both his legs and his right arm.
Now fitted with artificial limbs, Mr Ormrod described in chilling detail the split-second his life changed forever – and how he begged for death.
Purpose to life: Mark Ormrod pictured at home in Devon with wife Becky, 25, and 15 week-old baby boy Mason
Mr Ormrod said: ‘I was lying naked and dying in the desert. I just thought I can’t live like this. I turned to the corporal and shouted: “Stick a bullet through my head”.
‘I was serious. I remember lying there thinking that I would feel like someone had
punched me in the back of the head and then it would go black and it
would be okay.’
‘I used to be a lot more selfish. I was a different person. Since this all happened I am more positive’
Mr Ormrod was second-in-command of a patrol circling their remote
Forward Operating Base in Helmand province.
After nearly three hours, they had regrouped a couple of hundred feet from the main gate and were surveying the path ahead.
Mr Ormrod said: ‘I was in a bit of a hollow and I had my three guys looking out where I needed them.
‘Then I knelt on this thing and it went off.
‘When I detonated the IED all the sand and shingle was blown up and created a sandstorm.’
The blast had torn off three of Mark’s limbs.
Road to recovery: Hero Royal Marine Mark Ormrod pictured during rehabilitation after he lost both legs and one arm while serving in Afghanistan
Speaking of those first seconds, Mark said: ‘Initially I had no idea what I had done. I thought we had been hit by a mortar.
‘When I tried to turn around I couldn’t.
‘I went into a dream-like state, where I knew something was happening but it just didn’t feel real.
‘I looked to one side and I could see my body armour had been blown off and was lying on the ground. I looked at one of the lads and I could see he was in shock. Then I looked down and I knew it was bad.’
Pre-accident: Mark was serving in Helmand Province in December 2007 when his life changed forever
At this point Mark begged a colleague to put a bullet in his brain.
He said: ‘I remember lying there thinking that I would feel like someone had
punched me in the back of the head and then it would go black and it
would be okay.’
Praying for death: Seconds after the blast, Mr Ormrod asked a comrade to kill him
His comrades called ‘man down’ and a medic was rushed out from the base just a few minutes away.
Life-saving tourniquets were applied to his limbs and, despite the blood loss, Mark was able to take in the scene unfolding around him.
He can recall being lifted on to a vehicle and even trying to reach after a man who fell out when it suddenly accelerated.
Back at Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital, where all wounded servicemen are treated, Mark began his long road to recovery.
It was painful and slow, not least because he was the first triple amputee from Afghanistan who had survived their injuries.
He said: ‘I hated being in the wheelchair. People will just blank you out. They don’t see you and they don’t realise they’re doing it.’
Mr Ormrod now has hi-tech prosthetic legs and his wheelchair has been consigned to the shed of his home.
The former Royal Marine with Taunton-based 40 Commando now has a 14-week-old son, Mason, with his wife Becky who he proposed to while in hospital after the blast.
He said: ‘I think everything happens for a reason.
‘If I had died that day, then Mason wouldn’t be here.
‘Before I was blown up, my life was pretty rubbish. When I was on leave I would stay out all night and sleep on my mates’ sofas.
‘I used to be a lot more selfish. I was a different person. Since this all happened I am more positive.
‘I’ve not got any internal injuries. I think I’ve got the best of a bad situation.’
Mr Ormrod is working for the Royal Marines Association, a charitable group where he can support former servicemen in exactly the same way he has been helped.
This year he has set himself the challenge of cycling nearly 3,000 miles round the British coastline.
The event – Tour de Forces – will raise money for four military charities and sets off from Plymouth for the anti-clockwise circumnavigation.
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I think that you are glad your colleague chose to ignore your request, ife is worth living, even with disability,as you learn to adapt to a new way, with courage and determination. You look a very happy family, and i’m glad you are still on this earth. Never look back, the future is there. Good luck and best wishes to new horizons.
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Wonder how much compensation he is entitled to. Then you see how much Civil Serpents can claim for repetitive strain injury (£440.000 was what one typist claimed) and then tell me that the Government’s Covenant to the Armed Forces is still in place. Maybe his Tony-ness should consider how he would feel, if it were his son? After all, he was the one sending our troops into this disaster zone……
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What an inspiring story this gentleman and his family are for those of us who moan about the relatively minor inconveniences of everyday life, and indeed for the politicians, celebrities and bankers whos various misdemeanours polute the pages of this newspaper.
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david mark is on facebook and twitter he is on my FB
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He is a hero. A true hero. Wish him all the best for the future with his new family!
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DM please put more stories out like this, things that will actually encourage people and offer hope for so many. Tired of hearing about Kim Kardashian!
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Humbling.
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What a handsome young man!
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I wish only good things in the future for Mark and his family. I also hope that our government makes sure that he, and others injured in service to the coutry, are well looked after and want for nothing.
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No more war please. It’s heartbreaking when you lose you dear ones ! But, Will the politicians understand this? because they don’t send their sons to the battlefield !
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