ianstone
08-17-2010, 04:00 PM
17 August 2010 2:11 PM
Mother demands answers after hero Army officer dies in Afghanistan
A mother has reignited the debate over the number of helicopters in Afghanistan by asking why it took so long to rescue her dying son.
Lieutenant Mark Evison, 26, (right) had to wait an hour and five minutes for a helicopter to arrive after being shot in the shoulder in a firefight with the Taliban.
An inquest failed to explain why there was a 39-minute delay between the request for Lt Evison to be evacuated back to Camp Bastion field hospital and the chopper taking off.http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef0133f31fdb19970b-300wi (http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef0133f31fdb19970b-pi)
Lt Evison, from Dulwich, managed to remain conscious for up to 55 minutes after the shot severed a main artery, and helped command his platoon from 1st Battalion, Welsh Guards back to their patrol base. A second shot was stopped by his body armour.
But he fell into a coma while being flown back - in an American Black Hawk - to Camp Bastion. Despite the "heroic" efforts of medical staff to save his life, he died three days later after being airlifted to Selly Oak military hospital in Birmingham.
Today his mother, Margaret Evison, said she was dismayed that it was still unclear why took so long for a helicopter to be scrambled. Her concerns come after the Evening Standard obtained a secret Ministry of Defence memo (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23866868-helicopters-face-20-percent-cuts-to-make-pound-4bn-defence-savings.do) suggesting cuts of up to 20 per cent in the UK’s helicopter fleet as part of a shake-up of the country’s military.
http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef01348643366b970c-200wi (http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef01348643366b970c-pi) Mrs Evison (left) told me: "Basically Mark bled to death 20km away from the Army hospital and he was not picked up by a helicopter for almost an hour and 10 minutes after he was shot."
The coroner’s verdict said that Lt Evison - regarded as one of the finest officers of his generation and known as "007" because of his James Bond-like charisma - had only a "minimal" chance of surviving such massive blood loss, which caused his brain death.
He was shot on May 9 last year - four weeks after arriving in Afghanistan. His family turned off his life-support machine on May 12. Half his 30-man platoon had become trapped with him in a compound while out on patrol. He had exposed himself to enemy fire to try to gain sight of the Taliban fighters, and to try to get radio reception to call for help, when he was shot.
The first members of Lt Evison’s platoon to treat him did not have blood-clotting agents or sufficient medical fluids. But the coroner’s reportsaid this was not to blame for his death. Lt Evison had warned in his diary that shortages of equipment and manpower would result in soldiers dying on the front line.
Nor was it a material factor that the Black Hawk had no emergency medical equipment on board - unlike a British Chinook, which was too big to land at the Haji-Alem patrol base in Helmand province.
Mrs Evison, who has set up a charitable foundation in her son’s memory (http://www.markevisonfoundation.org/), said: "It’s all slightly academic whether and how he would have survived, but the fact is there was a 39-minute helicopter delay which is not accounted for.
"If the American helicopter had left two minutes after it was requested... he would have been back at Bastion 39 minutes sooner."
She added: "If anyone had suffered any degree of serious injury, then the helicopter being late is unacceptable. They did not know the state of his injury when the helicopter was delayed."
She questioned whether her son’s experience on the ground fitted in with the Military Covenant - the nation’s pledge to look after its servicemen and women - and described as "immaterial" the Ministry of Defence’s claim that Lt Evison would have died anyway.
She said: "If it was human error I can understand that. But if there were no helicopters... then I think one needs to look at that again.
"There was this muddle. The men were very upset. They were there with their dying, very popular leader. They were desperate for a helicopter. They had risked their lives to get him back. They probably had to wait half an hour before the helicopter came.
"If everything had gone according to plan, to best outcome, he would have arrived at Bastion conscious instead of being in a coma. I personally think he may have died anyhow but the impact of that was not considered at the inquest." More on Lt Evison can be found here. (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23867871-deaths-could-occur-which-could-have-been-stopped-we-are-walking-on-a-tightrope.do)
An MOD spokesmansaid: "Our sympathies remain with Mrs Evison following the death of her son, Lt Mark Evison. The inquest into his death concluded that the time taken for a medical helicopter to arrive did not contribute to Lt Evison’s death as his injuries were, sadly, unsurvivable."
Mother demands answers after hero Army officer dies in Afghanistan
A mother has reignited the debate over the number of helicopters in Afghanistan by asking why it took so long to rescue her dying son.
Lieutenant Mark Evison, 26, (right) had to wait an hour and five minutes for a helicopter to arrive after being shot in the shoulder in a firefight with the Taliban.
An inquest failed to explain why there was a 39-minute delay between the request for Lt Evison to be evacuated back to Camp Bastion field hospital and the chopper taking off.http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef0133f31fdb19970b-300wi (http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef0133f31fdb19970b-pi)
Lt Evison, from Dulwich, managed to remain conscious for up to 55 minutes after the shot severed a main artery, and helped command his platoon from 1st Battalion, Welsh Guards back to their patrol base. A second shot was stopped by his body armour.
But he fell into a coma while being flown back - in an American Black Hawk - to Camp Bastion. Despite the "heroic" efforts of medical staff to save his life, he died three days later after being airlifted to Selly Oak military hospital in Birmingham.
Today his mother, Margaret Evison, said she was dismayed that it was still unclear why took so long for a helicopter to be scrambled. Her concerns come after the Evening Standard obtained a secret Ministry of Defence memo (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23866868-helicopters-face-20-percent-cuts-to-make-pound-4bn-defence-savings.do) suggesting cuts of up to 20 per cent in the UK’s helicopter fleet as part of a shake-up of the country’s military.
http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef01348643366b970c-200wi (http://anmblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c565553ef01348643366b970c-pi) Mrs Evison (left) told me: "Basically Mark bled to death 20km away from the Army hospital and he was not picked up by a helicopter for almost an hour and 10 minutes after he was shot."
The coroner’s verdict said that Lt Evison - regarded as one of the finest officers of his generation and known as "007" because of his James Bond-like charisma - had only a "minimal" chance of surviving such massive blood loss, which caused his brain death.
He was shot on May 9 last year - four weeks after arriving in Afghanistan. His family turned off his life-support machine on May 12. Half his 30-man platoon had become trapped with him in a compound while out on patrol. He had exposed himself to enemy fire to try to gain sight of the Taliban fighters, and to try to get radio reception to call for help, when he was shot.
The first members of Lt Evison’s platoon to treat him did not have blood-clotting agents or sufficient medical fluids. But the coroner’s reportsaid this was not to blame for his death. Lt Evison had warned in his diary that shortages of equipment and manpower would result in soldiers dying on the front line.
Nor was it a material factor that the Black Hawk had no emergency medical equipment on board - unlike a British Chinook, which was too big to land at the Haji-Alem patrol base in Helmand province.
Mrs Evison, who has set up a charitable foundation in her son’s memory (http://www.markevisonfoundation.org/), said: "It’s all slightly academic whether and how he would have survived, but the fact is there was a 39-minute helicopter delay which is not accounted for.
"If the American helicopter had left two minutes after it was requested... he would have been back at Bastion 39 minutes sooner."
She added: "If anyone had suffered any degree of serious injury, then the helicopter being late is unacceptable. They did not know the state of his injury when the helicopter was delayed."
She questioned whether her son’s experience on the ground fitted in with the Military Covenant - the nation’s pledge to look after its servicemen and women - and described as "immaterial" the Ministry of Defence’s claim that Lt Evison would have died anyway.
She said: "If it was human error I can understand that. But if there were no helicopters... then I think one needs to look at that again.
"There was this muddle. The men were very upset. They were there with their dying, very popular leader. They were desperate for a helicopter. They had risked their lives to get him back. They probably had to wait half an hour before the helicopter came.
"If everything had gone according to plan, to best outcome, he would have arrived at Bastion conscious instead of being in a coma. I personally think he may have died anyhow but the impact of that was not considered at the inquest." More on Lt Evison can be found here. (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23867871-deaths-could-occur-which-could-have-been-stopped-we-are-walking-on-a-tightrope.do)
An MOD spokesmansaid: "Our sympathies remain with Mrs Evison following the death of her son, Lt Mark Evison. The inquest into his death concluded that the time taken for a medical helicopter to arrive did not contribute to Lt Evison’s death as his injuries were, sadly, unsurvivable."