Stacey Quirk stared out over the desert. The dry horizon seemed to go on forever, the endless dunes stretching as far as the eye could see.
It was 2007 and the soldier was halfway through her tour in Afghanistan. The then 20-year-old felt hot under her heavy armour as her wagon made its way across the vast singed-brown.
Stacey was rushed off the vehicle by the time it pulled up to Camp Bastion. A repatriation ceremony was about to start, meaning a body was due to be returned home to the UK.
Carrying a 30kg rucksack and rifle on her back, Stacey, from Wythenshawe , leapt off the back of the truck. The moment she hit the scorching hot sand, her leg gave way beneath her. In that moment, she knew her career in the army was over.
“I was so embarrassed, I tried to get up so quickly,” the now 36-year-old told the Manchester Evening News. “As soon as I hit the floor, it had gone. I was mortified.
“I didn’t want anyone else to notice but I had to stand there for a moment. It was so unstable. I guess I hoped I would be okay and I’d try and walk it off. Everything changed at that point onwards. I was never the same.”
Tests revealed Stacey, who served as a combat medical technician, had suffered an anterior cruciate ligament rupture. The musculoskeletal injury was severe - because it was the second time she had injured that part of her leg.
Before her arrival in Afghanistan, Stacey fell and ruptured a ligament in her knee while taking part in a skiing competition. She never received any treatment for the injury.
But when she fell on the leg for the second time, her knee only sustained further damage. Stacey didn’t know it then, but that fall would ultimately lead to amputation – changing the course of her life forever.
“Everyone was just baffled as to how they could fix it,” she continued. “They just kept failing. The surgeons weren’t sure what was going on or how to fix it.
“I was left with a leg that just wasn’t functioning. Any time there was any weight on it, it just wasn’t sitting in the right position. Every time I had an operation, there was more damage because of the way I was walking on it. I had my knee reconstructed five times which is unheard of.”
Following the fall, Stacey remained employed by the army, working in the medical centre, recruitment and the regimental welfare team. Sadly, in 2011, she was declared unfit for duty.
And despite endless operations and treatments in an attempt to fix her leg, the injury left her in constant pain. By 2014, Stacey had reached boiling point. She could no longer live the life she previously had and spent every day in agony. That year, she made the impossible decision to have her leg removed.
“I was fed up of it,” she added. “I fought for years to get back to full strength and I was held back. I felt like I had lost a lot of my life by that point. I wasn’t allowed to work – I was still employed by the army but I was unfit for duty.
“I was in the army accommodation and everyone around me was living a normal life. I was sat there feeling like I was wasting my life and I was a burden.
“I was struggling with my mental health and I felt like I didn’t have a purpose in the world anymore. This was a way for me to move forward.”
Following the amputation, Stacey can recall feeling a huge amount of relief once she came round from the surgery. “The first thing I did was check it had gone,” she said.
“There was a part of me that thought it would never happen. I just checked it wasn’t there to make sure that part of the journey was over so I could go back to the life I chose.
“The moment it was off was the start that there would be change from that point onwards. I was never going to allow it to fail.”
In 2015, Stacey was discharged from the army and returned to civilian life after an 11-year military career. Feeling lost, she discovered parasports and went on to become a para-athlete – competing for Great Britain in para ice hockey and sitting volleyball.
She has recently been selected to compete in an international para ice hockey tournament in Thailand this December. Stacey will be representing Great Britain.
Following this competition, she will be representing Great Britain Women in a tournament in Canada in January 2023.
A self-funded athlete, Stacey is left paying for the costs of camps, international travel, kit, insurance and fuel herself.
She has since set up a GoFundMe page in a bid to help raise some cash towards the costs. All money raised will go towards her para ice hockey journey. To donate, follow the link by clicking here .
READ NEXT:
- Mum given just 24 hours to live after being diagnosed with leukaemia while pregnant with sixth child'
- Dad loses both legs after small cut on hand turned into life-threatening sepsis
- PhD student, 35, gets horrific diagnosis day after honeymoon
-
"I had to have my leg amputated after 'paper cut' freak injury led to 17 years of agony"
- 'I was told I'd be dead by now': Man lived with hidden cancer which grew without symptoms for TEN years
