I begged my comrades to shoot me in the head after a Taliban booby-trap blew off my legs and arm – Mark Ormrod
A hero Royal Marine who begged comrades to shoot him in the head after being blown up and losing three limbs says he is now living his best life and has ‘become the man he was always meant to be’.
Mark Ormrod, 40, was serving in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on Christmas Eve in 2007 when he detonated a Taliban booby-trap that ripped off both his legs and his right arm.
Mark was second-in-command of a patrol circling their remote Forward Operating Base when tragedy struck in 2007.
He triggered the hidden explosive after kneeling down on a patch of high ground, with the blast sending Mark flying through the air in a cloud of dust and debris, before falling back into a huge crater.
Dazed, Mark thought he was under attack and scrambled to try find his rifle. It was only when the dust cleared that he realised the full horror of his situation – and the savage extent of his injuries.
‘I was lying naked and dying in the desert. I just thought I can’t live like this. I turned to the corporal and shouted: “Stick a bullet through my head”,’ he says.
‘I was serious. I remember lying there thinking that I would feel like someone had punched me in the back of the head and then it would go black and it would be okay.’
His comrades screamed ‘man down’ and a medic was rushed out from the base just a few minutes away.
Life-saving tourniquets were applied to his limbs and, despite the blood loss, Mark was able to take in the scene unfolding around him.
As his fellow Marines fought to save his life, Mark admitted he felt ’embarrassed’ and ‘ashamed’ at having triggered the bomb, which he feared now put his comrades in danger.
Medics pronounced him dead twice while evacuating him from the battlefield. However, despite his horrific injuries, the courageous Commando managed to pull through, becoming the UK’s first triple amputee to survive the war.
Incredibly, in spite of being told by doctors he’d never walk again, Mark defied all the odds and used his prosthetic legs to march onto the parade ground and collect his tour of duty medal just five months after being blown.
Since then, he’s continued to astound, running 3,500 miles across the US and cycling 3,000 miles in the UK for charity – as well as competing in the Invictus Games, an athletics contest for wounded troops.
His charity endeavours have even led to him working alongside Hollywood actor Tom Hardy, who he counts as a pal, and Prince Harry – who proudly dubbed Mark Britain’s own ‘superman’ after meeting the inspirational veteran while he was recovering.
Now, 16 years after cheating death, married father-of-three Mark revealed a potential TV programme about his life is in the works as he declared 2024 would be ‘his year’, adding: ‘I love being alive and I love my life. Losing my limbs made my life better.’