The SAS hero who battled Kenyan hotel terrorists has spoken publicly for the first time, telling how being shot felt like "banging your funny bone times by 10,000".
The special forces veteran, known as Christian Craighead, revealed how his arm was once left "hanging by the triceps" after being hit by a bullet fired from a Dragunov sniper rifle.
Speaking on Evan Hafer's Black Rifle Coffee Podcast in the US, the decorated hero said: "In the back of my mind I'm like 'I've been shot, that's cool', then there's like 'I hope I don't lose my arm'."
Speaking with a hint of his Geordie accent, he went on: "This is the strange thing. Now it hurt badly. When it goes through that bone. And I get it when people say when they get shot, they don't feel it. I completely buy into that if it doesn't go through a bone.
"But once it goes through a bone and shatters it, it hurts. It was like banging your funny bone and times by 10,000. That's what it felt like. But here's the messed-up bit.
"Going back into junior para, being indoctrinated and things, there was a sense of satisfaction. It was like, 'oh, I've just been shot, that's pretty cool'.
"In the back of my mind, I'm like 'I've been shot, that's cool, then there's like 'I hope I don't lose my arm'.
"And my arm was hanging by the triceps but, having some medical knowledge. I could wriggle my fingers.
"And in my mind, again just thinking, that's not that bad because I can wriggle my fingers. In my mind, I was thinking, 'I'm going to keep my arm'."
He suffered a shattered humerus and now has a titanium rod implanted from his elbow to shoulder.
Craighead added: "I think most young soldiers, maybe, you kind of want to get shot because it's like a thing isn't it, like 'oh I've been shot'.
"It's a be careful what you wish for, isn't it. And you kind of want it to happen, you want to be tested. And sometimes death is a price where you say 'do you know what, I don't mind dying'.
"I think there are lots of people who haven't seen combat who would've said 'I will sacrifice my life to experience that combat'.
"I think that's part of training, mindset, everything that comes to it."
Craighead, who joined the army in 1992 as a 16-year-old, was pictured in January 2019 during the Nairobi hotel siege.
He was in Kenya on a SAS mission to train local forces and was relaxing off-duty when Somali-based Al Shabaab militants attacked the Dusit D2 complex.
He raced to the scene in his civvies, pulled on a camouflage flak jacket, then led a counter-attack armed with a Colt Canada C8 assault rifle, Glock 17 pistol and combat knife.
Wearing a balaclava and heavily armed, he almost single-handedly defeated jihadis, rescuing dozens.
The 19-hour siege left 21 people dead, including British charity worker Luke Potter.
It was only last year, Craighead, who won a Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, the UK's second-highest medal for his heroics, unmasked himself so he could publish an account of how he ended the terror attack.
His move came after people kept impersonating him on social media and in pubs near the SAS's Hereford base.
Craighead's decision to unmask himself sparked deep concern among senior or defence officials, worried he may reveal details of the missions he was involved in.
Under strict rules, Special Forces troops must not discuss their operations publicly and seek to make money from revealing their details.
The rules follow the furore over books by ex-troopers Chris Ryan and Andy McNab, which raised the SAS' public profile and led to concerns over Special Forces troops leaking sensitive information which could compromise future operations.
Craighead's book on the siege called One Man In: The Explosive Firsthand Account of the Lone Special-Ops Soldier Who Fought Off a Major Terrorist Attack in Kenya', is expected to be published in June next year.
Discussing the MOD rules and confidentiality issues, he said: "I'm working with the Ministry of Defence as we speak to do it properly, to release this book, so there's no sense of information or anything.
"So that's as far as I'm willing to talk about my life in the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment. I should add that the book is just about that one day, so for anyone on the edge of their seats, it doesn't talk about anything I did while serving in the unit.
"It just talks about one thing I did that we all know I did."
The Newcastle-born hero currently spends much of his time in the States as he is engaged to Donald Trump's chief White House photographer Shealah Craighead.
