A SOLDIER severely injured in Afghanistan was blown up by a bomb that was on a pathway he and his colleagues thought was safe after it had been checked, an inquest heard.
Corporal Thomas Mason, known as Tam, suffered severe injuries when the improvised explosive device (IED) detonated in Kandahar Province on September 15, 2009.
The 27-year-old, of the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, survived the blast, despite losing both his legs, but died of multiple organ failure in hospital in the UK six weeks later, on October 25.
An inquest at Birmingham Coroner’s Court yesterday heard that Cpl Mason, of Rosyth, Fife, was part of a platoon occupying a compound for one or two days before the incident.
The pathway he and his colleagues were moving along, near a wall, at night, had been checked with metal detectors two days before and had been walked over several times.
But as a group of soldiers, including Cpl Mason, moved away from the compound on the night of September 15, the IED detonated.
A statement from Lance Corporal Sevanaia Tabua, read to the court, said Cpl Mason was about eight metres ahead of him. He said: “At that moment the explosion went off. I just saw a massive cloud of dust rising into the sky as I was thrown backwards. When the dust settled I was still in the same place.
“I looked towards where Tam had been and saw a big gap in the wall and a hole in the ground. Through the gap in the wall I could see Tam lying on his back.”
Cpl Mason was working as part of Operation Spin Arwa, aiming to disrupt insurgents in the area, which was known to be a “high-threat” area for IEDs, the court heard.
The inquest heard that troops were trained to sweep the area for bombs using a tactic called Operation Barma, using Vallon metal detectors.
Lance Corporal Andy Ritchie said he and Private Darren Lackie “Op Barma’d” the pathway once the platoon arrived. He said they only discovered small pieces of metal.
He told the inquest Pte Lackie, who is now dead, had swept the side of the path where the bomb later turned out to be.
Corporal James Couper said it was unlikely enemies had a chance to put an IED on the path once it had been swept as the troops “had eyes” on it after they arrived. He agreed that, after the checks that had been carried out, he had deemed the area to be “safe”.
The inquest heard that if there was metal in the IED it would have set off alarms on the metal detectors, which had been checked and were working, but it was possible the alarm had not been noted due to “human error”.
Cpl Mason was given emergency medical treatment before being flown back to Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital on September 17. Both his legs had been blown off near the knee, and he had suffered injuries to his hands and his pelvis.
Dr Steven Burnley told the inquest Cpl Mason underwent a series of operations to clear dead tissue from his legs and other injuries, but suffered serious infection, probably caused by dirt forced into his tissue from the explosion in Afghanistan.
Pathologist Dr Russell Delaney gave the cause of death as multi-organ failure due to severe lower limb and pelvic blast injuries caused by an explosion. He said after the blast Cpl Mason was prone to infection because of the way germs and dirt were driven into his tissues by the blast.
“Essentially, there was nothing further that the medical teams could have done to have saved his life, in my opinion.”
The inquest at Birmingham Coroner’s Court was adjourned until today.
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