Portraits of bravery: bomb disposal expert

As Armed Forces Day approaches, bomb disposal expert Corporal Anthony Horner describes a day of fortitude amid bad luck.

By Paul Kendall, Daily Telegraph

"It was one of those days when everything went wrong," says Corporal Anthony Horner.


A corporal in the Counter IED Task Force, a unit dedicated to disarming the Improvised Explosive Devices that claim so many British lives, he and his team had just spent the morning defusing two bombs when they were called to the scene of another explosion.

A Danish soldier had just been killed, his body ripped apart after his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. Cpl Horner's team had orders to examine the area and establish exactly how the trap had been laid.

"When we got there the Danish soldiers were sitting down, clearly in shock," says Horner, 25. "As they tried to drink some water, I could see their hands shaking.

"Our job was to find out what went wrong, what kind of device had been used and how they'd been targeted."

But the British team had only just started their investigation when one of the Danish soldiers stepped on a second device. Horner was 50ft away from the explosion.

"My whole team was thrown to the ground by the blast," he says. "My head was spinning, my ears ringing." Then just as he was getting to his feet, a third bomb went off.

After two months in Afghanistan, Corp Horner and his colleagues, a tight team of three men and one woman, had defused 28 IEDs, saving countless lives in the process, without sustaining any injuries. Finally, their luck had run out.

"I was thrown back onto the floor," Horner says. "I must have blacked out for a minute. When I came to, I could hear screaming."

He looked around and saw the rest of his team, all wounded. One was gushing blood from a hole in his leg, another, his female colleague, had a deep gash in the back of her foot. Then he looked down at his own leg and saw that it, too, was pouring with blood.

"I couldn't believe it," he says. "It was almost as if I was watching it happening to somebody else. It was really surreal."

After what seemed like ages, but was probably only a few seconds, someone came over to help. He put a bandage on the wound and pressed down hard, but Cpl Horner was losing blood fast.

"He wanted to put a tourniquet on but I was adamant that I didn't want one," he says. "I have a massive fear that once you put a tourniquet on, that leg is going to die."

Corp Horner held the bandage and prayed for the Medevac helicopter.

"I'd never seen anything like it," he says. "It was complete and utter carnage." In total, three Danes and three Brits had been injured and the Danish soldier who had triggered the second explosion had lost both his legs and hands.

Fortunately, all survived. Cpl Horner now has his leg in plaster and has been told he will be back on his feet in two weeks.

A typical soldier, he can't wait to go back out into the field.

"As soon as I can walk and carry weight on my leg, I'll re-join [the task force]," he says. "It's worth the risk. When we have a good day and pull five devices out of the ground, you can see the relief on people's faces.

"This is the most important thing I've ever done in my life."

Photo: Corporal Gary Kendall RLC