The Scottish Mail on Sunday

FEET OF STEEL HEART OF GOLD Harry’s wounded hero is blade-running for glory in Rio... cheered by the girl who refused to leave him

- By MARK NICOL

BLADE runner Dave Henson will be going for gold in the Rio Paralympic­s. But he is a man already blessed with the greatest prizes of his life – the loyalty of the woman who remained devoted to him after he lost both legs on the battlefiel­d, and their miracle baby.

As a double amputee, the former Army bomb disposal expert offered his university sweetheart Hayley her freedom, unwilling to see her bound to him by guilt or pity.

She refused, later accepting a Christmas Day fireside proposal of marriage. Now, thanks to sperm rescued from Henson as military surgeons battled to save him, the couple are parents to 18 month-old daughter Emily Rose.

Both mother and daughter will be watching him sprint for Britain in Rio next week – flying the flag for the country to which he has already given so much. And while he remains a deeply private man, he reveals his gratitude by admitting he would not have made such a stunning recovery without them.

Henson says: ‘Hayley and I were young but dating seriously. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to us with me being injured and having to leave the Army, which was the worst part for me. Psychologi­cally that was very difficult. It made me question my worth.

‘I thought Hayley should have a better relationsh­ip. I couldn’t see how anyone would stay with me. I needed to offer her the chance, but she was stubborn and wouldn’t leave and I’m really glad she didn’t because she has been fundamenta­l to my recovery and we are very happy.

‘On Christmas Day 2012, I proposed to her in front of the fireplace at home and got out a diamond ring, which was pretty romantic for me because I am not a romantic person.’

The couple married the following September in the garrison church at Tidworth, Wiltshire, where Henson was stationed before the devastatin­g tour of duty in Afghanista­n in 2011 when he trod on an improvised explosive device (IED).

They tried for a family using IVF, eternally grateful to the military medics whose foresight made it possible, and were astonished when it worked first time, leading to the birth of Emily Rose in February last year.

Henson goes on: ‘Given all that we’d gone through, Emily Rose was a miracle baby for us. As soon as I saw her I was smitten. I couldn’t stop staring. Our daughter has brought Hayley and I a light, a smile, a happiness that we didn’t even know we were missing.’

There is no doubt that Henson is an extraordin­ary man. Eight weeks after he was blown up in February 2011 he was walking on full-height prosthetic legs. Six months after that he stood alongside his brother as best man at his wedding. Then he turned to sport – open-water swimming, sitting volleyball and skiing.

But it was sprinting, and with it the promise of speed, which became his passion after he tried on his first pair of running blades in 2011. In the ensuing five years has built himself into a world-class disabled athlete, captaining the British team at the 2013 Warrior Games in the US and Prince Harry’s Invictus Games in 2014, winning a 200m gold.

While competing he has built up a close friendship with the Prince, who has described him as ‘world class’. Dave paid tribute to Harry, saying: ‘He has friends who were injured serving their country, so it’s very personal for him. His commitment and enthusiasm are very real.’

Outside athletics, Henson completed a masters degree in biomedical engineerin­g, working on the relationsh­ip between the human body and machines. Now he is doing a PhD on prosthetic design so he can improve the future for other amputees.

Of course, none of this is what Henson envisaged when he joined the Royal Engineers in 2008, deployed to Afghanista­n in 2010 as an IED specialist, a high-risk mine hunter. He remembers in painful detail the day that changed his life.

‘We’d been in Afghanista­n for four months and didn’t have long to go. That day, February 13, 2011, my seven-man counter-IED team, attached to the Royal Irish Regiment, was clearing compounds in Nad-e Ali. The Taliban had left IEDs in people’s homes, and they couldn’t return until we’d checked them. I stepped on an IED. I was thrown into the air and came back down on my head.

‘I sat up against a wall and when the dust settled I looked down. My legs were in pieces, skin and muscle hanging off and bones poking out. When the pain came it felt like I was being crushed by a massive weight. Adrenaline was pumping through me and I remember screaming in horror at what I could see and feeling terrified about what my family would think.

‘Within minutes my colleagues patched me up, putting tourniquet­s on the remains of my legs to stem the bleeding. They also stripped me naked. So while I waited for the rescue helicopter back to Bastion [the main British base in Helmand province] I was lying there with no clothes on, smoking cigarettes.

‘Officially my legs were amputated at Bastion but there really wasn’t much tissue left for anyone to chop off. I was flown back to the UK a couple of days later, scared but relieved to be alive.’

Henson’s left leg was taken off through the knee joint and his right leg just below the knee. Later his right leg would be amputated even

‘I looked down. Both my legs were in pieces’

higher after his wounds failed to heal properly. He also had blast wounds on his thighs, arms and buttocks. He has suffered nightmares and flashbacks, along with phantom pains as his central nervous system adjusted to the trauma. It was at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham that doctors collected and froze Henson’s sperm, as his injuries meant he might not be able to father children naturally. He says: ‘I was in hospital for five weeks, in and out of intensive care having countless operations to close my wounds. ‘I was on a heavy dose of morphine but I can just about remember being told by the doctors that they’d taken a semen sample which would hopefully allow me to have children. Even though my amputation­s were quite far down my thighs, I had sustained injuries higher up caused by the force of the blast. While I can remember being told, I don’t think at the time I was too aware of what it meant, its significan­ce.’

Taking a sperm sample was an ‘assumed consent’ procedure. Over the length of the British campaign in Helmand, when hundreds of British soldiers were severely wounded by IEDs, it became establishe­d practice in cases where soldiers’ injuries jeopardise­d their chances of becoming a father.

It has been a blessing for Henson and geography teacher Hayley, who met at Hertfordsh­ire University four years before he was wounded.

The couple have decided that Emily Rose, at just 18 months old, is too small to make the journey to Rio. ‘She’s too young for the flight and sitting in athletics stadiums. She’ll be tucked up in bed at the time when I’m running out here. It wasn’t that I would be distracted or concerned about her welfare – I worry about that even though she’s back at home, that’s just being a father. I do miss her and Hayley a lot but my Mum and Dad will be there to watch me.’

They stand a good chance of seeing their son win a medal. In May at the Desert Challenge Games in Arizona he set a world best time of 24.71 seconds for the 200m. It’s been broken since by fellow British paralympia­n Richard Whitehead but Henson is obviously not a man to shirk a challenge.

He says: ‘I first put on a pair of carbon fibre running blades in December 2011. I stumbled before falling over. I fell over hundreds of times after that and it must have been 18 months before I was comfortabl­e. I had to master a completely different movement pattern and use different muscles.

‘I started sprinting properly in the build up to the Invictus Games and since then I’ve taken it more seriously each year. I have found potential I didn’t know I had.’

He is now training in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, looking forward to his 200m heat on Saturday – and hopefully the final on Sunday. ‘I can’t allow myself to think about the explosion just before I compete,’ he says.

‘I need to empty my mind, not think about the past. It is only afterwards that I’ll maybe think about everything that’s happened and the friends that didn’t make it home.’

‘I can’t allow myself to think about the past’

 ??  ?? BLADE RUNNER: Dave Henson, above, and with Prince Harry at the Warrior Games in 2013. Top right: Wife Hayley and daughter Emily Rose. Far right: Serving in Afghanista­n
BLADE RUNNER: Dave Henson, above, and with Prince Harry at the Warrior Games in 2013. Top right: Wife Hayley and daughter Emily Rose. Far right: Serving in Afghanista­n
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