IMMORTAL BEHAVIOUR IN THE FACE OF DEATH

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8175810.stm

"'I need a helicopter', said the unfaltering voice, 'I think I have lost my leg.' The voice was that of 27-year-old Lt Disney. I had been chatting to him only 24 hours earlier.

"An affable, self-confident subaltern in the Light Dragoons, his troop of armoured vehicles was parked on a ridge overlooking the Nahr-e-Bagra canal, across which the British were about to advance into a matrix of improvised explosive devices and ambushes.

"I needed power for my computer and there was none available for miles. Lt Disney suggested I plug my laptop into the battery of his Spartan troop carrier. Now, perhaps 200 yards from me, this same Lt Disney was balanced on his one good leg in the smoke-filled interior of his Spartan, which had just been hit by a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade."

Other shocked and wounded soldiers tried to apply a tourniquet to Lt Disney's leg – as he remained on the radio and in command.

The reporter said: "As an example of leadership and sang-froid, it was outstanding.

"But this was also the pivotal moment in Disney's life; within a microsecond he had changed from being a promising young Army officer and an amateur jockey to a 'traumatic' combat amputee."