A hero soldier recalled the horrific moment in battle when he looked down and realised his left arm had been blown off. By the time he reached an American field hospital, paratrooper Jaco van Gass had less than a pint of blood left in his body.
As reported by the Mirror, Jaco was on a mission to capture the head of a Taliban terror cell when he was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. It tore off his left arm and part of his leg but he kept on firing his pistol at the enemy.
“It was when I was trying to hold my rifle in the correct position that I realised something didn’t feel right," he said. "Where my left arm should have been there was just empty space.
"Although I understood at once that I had lost my arm, the only thing I wanted was to be able to return fire. I let off a few loose bullets, not really aiming anywhere apart from the general direction of the enemy, the rifle jammed against my hip.”
It was towards the end of his second tour of duty in Afghanistan and the eve of his 23rd birthday when Jaco suffered the horrendous injuries. “Coming to the end of the tour, we started to think about looking good for going home.
"Tanned, muscles twice as big. We called it Operation Massive," he said.
At 11.30pm on August 19, 2009, a team was dispatched by helicopter and men from 1 Para abseiled on to the target’s roof while Jaco provided cover. The mission itself was a success but as Jaco headed back with his team to the helicopter, “AK-47s crackled into the night” and an intense firefight broke out and Jaco was hit.
A comrade grabbed the morphine pen from Jaco’s pocket and jabbed it into his right arm. While bullets continued to fire in their direction, colleagues lay over him to stop debris getting into his wounds and a medic stood on the stump of his arm to stem heavy blood loss.
At the hospital, Jaco's heart stopped twice during surgery. Doctors cut him open and “lifted my internal organs out to remove shrapnel from them one by one”.
But his “Operation Massive” fitness levels helped him pull through. Days later, he woke in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham – then the UK’s main military hospital and he was later transferred to Headley Court, Surrey, a former military rehabilitation centre.
Jaco says: “The small things that I once took for granted were hugely significant, like the day I managed to squeeze toothpaste on the brush with one arm or buttered a slice of toast on my own.”
Frustrated by using a wheelchair, he vowed to walk again – and did so, by Christmas that year. In 2010 he signed up for Exercise Snow Warrior, a ski trip in Bavaria for injured servicemen. Despite never having skied before, he was tackling a black run after just a week.
In a new book, Jaco recalls the horrific day in Afghanistan and how he went on to Paralympics glory, world titles, an assault on Mount Everest, meeting the Royals, receiving the MBE and finding love.
Jaco found two new passions. First, he learned to climb, with a pickaxe fitted to his left upper arm. He scaled 26,781ft Mount Manaslu in the Himalayas – the world’s eighth highest mountain – and in 2012 joined the Walking With the Wounded ascent of Everest.
In April 2011 he joined the 13-day Walking With the Wounded expedition across the ice cap to the North Pole to raise money for wounded veterans. Prince Harry, then serving with the Army, joined the trekkers for part of the way. He had previously met Jaco in hospital.
Harry has written a dedication for Jaco’s book, calling him “one of life’s most inspiring people”. They first met when the prince visited Selly Oak Hospital – and later for a David Bailey photoshoot for GQ magazine before the North Pole trek.
Jaco recalls: “Harry put us all at ease, telling us to call him ‘H’ and getting very close to us on David’s request. For one picture we almost had our faces in Harry’s armpits!
“By end of the day we were all laughing and joking together. Harry slotted in just like one of the boys.”
Harry joined the North Pole trek for a few days. Jaco adds: “He was always, popping into our tents to say hi in the evenings, often bringing snacks. He wore this monkey-head beanie hat that we joked about.
“Harry was down-to-earth and easy to be around. He had a great love for the Army. It’s always had a special place in his heart.”
Harry also presented Jaco with two medals at the Invictus Games in 2014. Jaco said: “Harry had seen me at my worst and best – he had visited Selly Oak, been part of the team that walked to the North Pole and now I was facing him as a professional athlete. It was a very special moment for both of us.”
Jaco has met King Charles three times – and received the MBE from him at Windsor Castle in June. He also got to meet the late Queen Elizabeth.
Of the late monarch, who he met at Buckingham Palace after his North Pole expedition, Jaco says: “She was wonderful, very friendly and engaged. She asked how cold it was and was interested in the particular challenges we faced and how I managed with one arm.”
Jaco also fell in love with cycling and became a full-time racer. In 2014, with an aerodynamic prosthetic arm, he won two golds at the Invictus Games for wounded veterans and further glory followed with three world titles in 2020.
Last year, at the Tokyo Paralympics, Jaco landed two gold medals and a bronze. There was joy off the track too when he met web developer Kathryn Pringle, 28, and they wed in February.
She, too, has a love of sport and they live in Sale, Gtr Manchester. And though cycling remains Jaco’s key focus, there’s something else that won’t go away. He says: “There’s Everest. I still want to tick that off.”
Jaco van Gass Unequivocal, published by Mirror Books, on sale now. Get £3 off (RRP £16.99) with offer code RB5 from mirrorbooks.co.uk
