Lebanese mine clearer rushes back to work despite loss of limb

By Patrick Galey
Daily Star staff
Saturday, September 05, 2009

NABATIEH: Ali Murad will never forget one ill-fated day in February. “When I went to hospital I wasn’t unconscious so I remember everything,” he says. “We were working normally in the field. On the way back to my line” – Murad claps his hands. “Bang.” Ali, 25, was part of the Mine Advisory Group’s field clearance team on that fateful winter morning. His team was conducting a visual search in an area of land known to be contaminated with live cluster bomb fragments and had taken a break.

On the way back to his search position, Ali stepped on an unexploded M-77 submunition. The blast obliterated his right foot and badly damaged the other leg. Quick thinking by his support team in the field may well have saved Ali’s life.

“The team had the dressing on and got him out of the field in about four minutes,” says MAG Technical Field Manager Jeffrey Caldwell.

“When the bang happened, I saw my leg. I said ‘It’s finished,’” Ali recalls. “The medic was telling me there was nothing to worry about, that it would be OK. I told him to forget this one,” he says, pointing to the gap below his right knee. “Take care of the other one.”

Ali pleaded with surgeons at Sidon’s Hammoud Hospital to save as much of the ruined limb as possible. In listening to their stricken patient, the surgeons made a terrible error.

They amputated too little of the injured area and in order for a prosthetic limb to be fitted, Ali required an additional dangerous operation to remove more of his leg.

Ali’s injuries were so severe that doctors initially feared he would never walk again. What they hadn’t anticipated was the determination of their patient.

“The day of the accident I went to see Ali in the hospital,” says MAG country program manager, Dr. Christina Bennike. “The first thing he asked was, ‘When can I come back to work?’” she adds.

To Bennike’s delight – and the doctors’ amazement – Ali was back in the field clearing mines in July – even before a suitable false leg had been found.

Bennike explains why getting Ali back into the fray was a priority.

“Psychological recovery is keeping these guys working, not to leave them at home feeling sorry for themselves, thinking and reflecting,” she says.

“This is something that we have started this year. We keep them on the payroll so they have access to medical support. [We have] a network of people who have been through similar experiences,” Bennike adds.

Although others have lost limbs and returned to work during the three years since MAG started clearing Lebanon of cluster bombs, she admits to being awestruck by Ali’s irascibility.

“There was another accident 10 days after Ali’s. We didn’t want to tell him but he found out,” Bennike says. “He found a wheelchair and dragged himself out of bed. He wheeled himself down to the intensive-care unit in order to check on his colleague.”

A subsequent investigation revealed that Ali’s munition had been buried at a rough depth of 20 centimeters. Not only did this absolve Ali of any professional negligence – given that the bomblet was not visible and hence hadn’t been “missed” – it also probably saved his life.

“One inch of standard earth [covering a bomblet] increases your chances of survival by about 3 percent,” explains Caldwell. “So for every inch of separation you have, your chance of survival goes up.

“We found that all the procedures were done properly and everything was the way it was meant to be. It was just one of those accidents that you cannot stop. It was just going to happen,” he adds.

Ali still walks with a slight limp and says he often finds himself scratching his false leg when he feels “like I have an itch in my old one.” But his mind is never far from the day of the accident.

“I remember thinking of my home,” he says. “You lose something in your body but your thoughts are not just for you. You think of your son, your wife. You think of things in a different way.”

Ali adds that despite his traumatic experience, not returning to a job that he loved was never an option.

“When you start you think about money; it’s a good salary,” he says. “But later, when you see the people we help and they thank you all the time, that feeling is very good.”