By Matt Richardson:
You open your eyes with a hazy recollection of how you ended up in bed that isn’t yours on your 21st Birthday. Some would argue this was a dream scenario. But, when the fog clears and your last memory is crawling to safety in Afghanistan after detonating a landmine, this dream becomes a nightmare.
For royal marine Ben McBean, February 28th 2008 was the start of an unexpected and uncertain future.
He was five months into his first tour in Kajaki, south Afghanistan, on a routine desert patrol. They approached 50 yards of exposed land, he runs as his team cover his position. He still remembers the large explosion beneath him.
“I looked down and my right leg was missing, my left arm was wrapped around the back of my neck. I tried to move to safety and just remember thinking about home.”
Now 23, Ben is softly spoken with a smile that seems unmovable from his face. It is with infectious enthusiasm that he shows me the prosthetic leg he used to run the Flora London Marathon in 2009. Just one year after Afghanistan.
“In life, there are obstacles that come along and disrupt the comfort of normal everyday life, but the important thing is how you react and get back up on your feet,” he says.
Ben had woken up in the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham. On a day that should be about celebration, Instead he came to realise the dream he at 10-years-old, to be a royal marine, had effectively come to an end in a violent instant.
“I did not know what to do next, for weeks I felt empty and my family was devastated,” he admits.
But, while recovering in hospital, a television, left on accidently, screened the Flora London Marathon 2008. Inspiration struck. “I set the challenge, in 2009, I was running the marathon,” he says with undeniable certainty.
After five weeks, Ben was moved to the Headley Court Military Hospital in Surrey. It was here that Ben was fitted with his new prosthetic leg and 10 months of rehabilitation began.
He was offered a wheelchair, he rejected at point blank. “I had to walk then,” he says. He is remorselessly tough on himself to push on with life. “Within two weeks I was walking, after two months I was running. I then got my arm back and regained my balance so I was running everywhere.” He beams.
It was during rehab that he met Prince Harry for the second time. The first time, Harry was watching over Ben as he lay fighting for his life on the flight back to the UK. This time round, the Prince found Ben halfway up the climbing wall at HMS Drake. “Get to the top and I’ll buy you a beer,” the Prince encouraged. Ben didn’t reach the top, he climbed over it. A crate of beer was duly delivered the next day.
“I’ve met him a few times now, he sent me good letters after I contracted MRSA and I have seen him at award ceremonies. It’s been nice to have that contact.”
You can’t help but get caught up with his positive energy. He brushes aside the wounds he suffered from the prosthetic leg rubbing at the flesh of his lower thigh as covered 26 miles on unforgiving concrete. Instead, he revels in the knowledge he finished ahead of over 11,000 other people racing that day.
Ben doesn’t look for pity, for him, February 28th 2008 is just a day that he faced an obstacle and survived. “I look at it positively, what I have achieved after Afghanistan is rewarding.”
The real hardship Ben admits was learning to do the simple things again. “I can cope with the leg. But not having two arms is difficult, laces, buttons even making a cup of tea can take five times longer than it used to. It’s frustrating.”
Since leaving the royal marines, Ben has used his experience as a tool to motivate others. Whether speaking at events for Chelsea Football Club or JP Morgan, on BBC Radio 1, or ITV’s This Morning, he shows what can be achieved through resilience.
“I’m the same person I was before, I was fighting for my country and I lost two limbs. But I’m alive, aren’t I?”
Ben is very much alive, having completed the Flora London marathon for a second time in 2010, and reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya, Ben has set his sights on a new challenge for 2012. “I want to do a desert marathon for comic relief. I’m just looking into it at the moment, the way my leg is designed, I don’t know whether it will be able to adjust to the sand.” He says looking down at his leg, before he says assuredly: “I know I will be there, whether I finish or not is another question, but I am sure I will be o.k.”
The smile beams. I have seen this look before. It’s that look of certainty.
