Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘I’m proof that you can overcome anything’
After losing both legs, ex-soldier Simon Harmer is inspiring others, supported by National Lottery-funded charities
FOR brave Army medic Simon Harmer life seemed perfect. He’d just married his childhood sweetheart and was doing a job he loved.
Then one day in 2009, it all changed in a flash, when Simon was on patrol in Afghanistan and stepped on a home-made bomb. The memory of that moment is still vivid…
“I was just 150m outside my base,” says the 44-year-old former sergeant in the Royal Army Medical Corps. “I was knocked unconscious for a few seconds, and then I quickly realised that my left leg had been blown to bits and part of my right leg was gone too.”
Two fellow soldiers carried him back to the Army camp and battled to keep him alive but, he says, “I was losing blood as fast as they could pump it into me – it was going in one end and coming out the other.”
Within the hour, Simon was on a Chinook helicopter heading to Camp Bastion, where his right leg was amputated. The next day he was flown back to Britain – among his fellow passengers were soldiers he’d been treating just days earlier.
Once home Simon immediately underwent the first of a string of operations. Within weeks, he had begun physiotherapy to help him regain fitness – and a month later he took his first, unsteady steps on a pair of prosthetic legs.
“It sounds a bit si l ly, but y ou really have to find your feet again,” he says. “You have to walk s li g h t ly di f fe re nt ly – u si ng prosthetic legs involves different muscles.”
The road back to recovery has been a long one, but Simon has become a shining example to all on how to overcome adversity.
With the help of National Lottery-supported charities such as the Royal British Legion ,
SSAFA (The Armed Forces Charity) and Blesma (The Limbless Veterans Charity), he has participated in a series of tough physical challenges, raising thousands of pounds.
“In 2012 I took part in a seven-day relay charity race across the US with seven other servicemen, riding a specially adapted bike,” he says. “I also raised money doing a tandem parachute jump [strapped to an instructor].
“But I could never have achieved all that I’ve done without the financial support I’ve received from the veterans’ and disabled service charities.”
Since 1994 The National Lottery has helped to fund more than 28,000 projects that support veterans. And those are just some of the good causes that benefit from the £30million* you raise every week by playing The National Lottery.
Drawing on his own re ma r k a b l e stor y, Simon has now become a l e a d i n g mo t iv a - tional speaker, giving talks in
schools, prisons and hospitals, and to staff at multinational businesses.
“I talk about how I got over a life-changing situation and how others can – it’s essentially about resilience,” he says.
“And I try to help people deal with whatever life has thrown at them, whether it’s losing a loved one, a job… or in my case, my legs. It’s easy to get blindsided by a situation and forget that it’s all part of life.”
Meanwhile, Simon and his wife Marisa have gone on to have three children – Sophia, nine, Leo, seven, and Emilia, five. “We always wanted a family, and having the kids was hugely important to my recovery,” he says.
Simon has also become a keen open-water swimmer, despite having to rely entirely on his arms and upper body for propulsion. He has swum the 11 miles of Lake Windermere, and is preparing for a new charity challenge next year : swimming ‘the Ice Mile’ – a mile in water under five degrees.
“I’ve been doing a lot of training in Andark Lake, near Southampton, but at the moment the water temperature is about 15 degrees, which is way too warm,” he says, adding with a chuckle, “But it should be nice and chilly in January or February!”