“I didn’t hear a boom. I don’t remember anything until I woke up about 9 hours later. What I’m telling you now is what I’ve been told. I was blown 35 feet out of the vehicle and off to the right. I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt and that’s why I lived.
Corporal Steuter came running to me and he saw that my arm was all messed up and my leg was in shambles. My face and legs were covered in blood from shrapnel wounds. The blast tore through my meniscus and the ligaments inside my knee, particularly the ACL and MCL. Because the meniscus, ACL, and MCL were torn, my foot was turned around so my toes were pointed to the ground instead of into the air…”
Continued…
“The blast tore up my left knee and punctured a hole through my left leg. My right knee had a tear down the outside from being hit or something as I was blown out of the vehicle.
Since we took the blast on the driver’s side and I was sitting on the passenger’s side, the radio in the middle broke free and smashed into my left elbow, causing it to be shattered into hundreds of pieces. My shattered elbow caused my arm to dangle and barely hang on. My left tricep was damaged as well.
With my left elbow smashed and the tricep torn up, my arm was totally dismantled. The only thing that would keep my arm and left leg intact would be external fixators that would be attached later when I was in one of two surgical centers in Iraq….”
Read this honest and open Memoir by Larry ‘Butch’ Perry III.
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