Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline
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Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline
Torygraph: Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline, C4, review
Terry Ramsey reviews Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline, a Channel 4 documentary about victims of IEDs.
If this year throws up a programme more deserving of an hour’s screen time than last night’s Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline (Channel 4), then I’ll be amazed. Pleased to see it, but definitely surprised, because the schedules are full of 60-minute documentaries - it is the default length these days - but few, if any, have filled the time so compellingly.
It followed Giles Duley, a young British photographer who had three limbs blown off when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan. His is a truly awesome story. Not “awesome” in the modern teenagers’ sense, but in its traditional meaning: inspiring awe.
In truth, there were two awesome stories. The first was the account of Duley’s own injuries, which opened the programme, a scene of vivid horror.
The explosion blew off both legs and an arm. “I have a memory of just floating, with no sound, nothing, but this intense heat and then a sudden impact and just landing on my side. I could see my legs had gone. I just thought that was it,” he recalled. Military operations are filmed these days, using head cameras, so there was actual footage of Duley being rushed on a stretcher from the explosion and of the US medics keeping him alive in the helicopter that took him to hospital, telling him to “Hang on in there, buddy”. The grainy, jerky, amateur footage had an immediacy no director could have devised.
Thirty operations were required to stabilise his injuries. “There were times when I wasn’t sure I wanted to make it.” But make it he did. And then came the second story: his return to Afghanistan (amazingly, less than two years after his previous trip) to meet local people who, like him, have lost limbs to bombs and IEDs. Children and the poor are the main victims, as they most often play or walk on the roads. There were heart-breaking stories.
This programme was excellent not only because the story is so powerful, and Duley is an engaging and inspiring personality, but because the director-producer Siobhan Sinnerton crafted a beautifully understated piece of work.
It also contained a third story. Perhaps not an awesome one, but an uplifting one. Just before Duley went on his fateful first trip, he got together with girlfriend Jen. When he arrived in Afghanistan he emailed her to say he thought she was “the one” for him. She replied, saying she cared for him too. But he didn’t see that email, because it arrived the day he stepped on the IED.
Since then, she has been by his side, and they are closer then ever. Which is why he says losing his arm is worse than losing both his legs: “You can’t hug somebody properly.”
Terry Ramsey reviews Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline, a Channel 4 documentary about victims of IEDs.
If this year throws up a programme more deserving of an hour’s screen time than last night’s Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline (Channel 4), then I’ll be amazed. Pleased to see it, but definitely surprised, because the schedules are full of 60-minute documentaries - it is the default length these days - but few, if any, have filled the time so compellingly.
It followed Giles Duley, a young British photographer who had three limbs blown off when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan. His is a truly awesome story. Not “awesome” in the modern teenagers’ sense, but in its traditional meaning: inspiring awe.
In truth, there were two awesome stories. The first was the account of Duley’s own injuries, which opened the programme, a scene of vivid horror.
The explosion blew off both legs and an arm. “I have a memory of just floating, with no sound, nothing, but this intense heat and then a sudden impact and just landing on my side. I could see my legs had gone. I just thought that was it,” he recalled. Military operations are filmed these days, using head cameras, so there was actual footage of Duley being rushed on a stretcher from the explosion and of the US medics keeping him alive in the helicopter that took him to hospital, telling him to “Hang on in there, buddy”. The grainy, jerky, amateur footage had an immediacy no director could have devised.
Thirty operations were required to stabilise his injuries. “There were times when I wasn’t sure I wanted to make it.” But make it he did. And then came the second story: his return to Afghanistan (amazingly, less than two years after his previous trip) to meet local people who, like him, have lost limbs to bombs and IEDs. Children and the poor are the main victims, as they most often play or walk on the roads. There were heart-breaking stories.
This programme was excellent not only because the story is so powerful, and Duley is an engaging and inspiring personality, but because the director-producer Siobhan Sinnerton crafted a beautifully understated piece of work.
It also contained a third story. Perhaps not an awesome one, but an uplifting one. Just before Duley went on his fateful first trip, he got together with girlfriend Jen. When he arrived in Afghanistan he emailed her to say he thought she was “the one” for him. She replied, saying she cared for him too. But he didn’t see that email, because it arrived the day he stepped on the IED.
Since then, she has been by his side, and they are closer then ever. Which is why he says losing his arm is worse than losing both his legs: “You can’t hug somebody properly.”
Last edited by ORAC; 22nd Feb 2013 at 10:30.
I have been following Senior Airman Brian Kolfage by means of his Facebook Page.....as his is very much an awe inspiring story as well. He was wounded by a nearly direct hit of a 107mm Rocket and has not only survived but continues to live a wonderful life. He too married a wonderful Woman who has been his "Rock", is out of the Air Force and is in University doing a degree in Architecture.
These stories of indomitable courage and achievement abound and remind us of what true courage and spirit is all about.
What so strongly impresses me is not what Brian has done for "himself"....but what he is doing for others. That makes him a real life "Hero" in my estimation.
https://www.facebook.com/BrianKolfage?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/SeaOfInspirationBrian
These stories of indomitable courage and achievement abound and remind us of what true courage and spirit is all about.
What so strongly impresses me is not what Brian has done for "himself"....but what he is doing for others. That makes him a real life "Hero" in my estimation.
https://www.facebook.com/BrianKolfage?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/SeaOfInspirationBrian
Last edited by SASless; 22nd Feb 2013 at 11:32.
