In a special 100th episode of Head Game, host Ant Middleton was joined by Australian Army veteran Curtis McGrath, who lost both his legs in an IED explosion in Afghanistan.
Curtis opens up about this horrific moment, and how, as the team’s medic, he needed to direct his own lifesaving care. He revealed that, as he was airlifted out for treatment, he joked with his unit that he’d soon be at the Paralympics, which he indeed did winning Gold at three Paralympic Games and titles all over the world.
Listen below:
Ant: Curtis, take me back to the day when you’re on your clearance patrol.
Curtis: Yeah. So it was 23rd of August, 2012 so three months into our six month tour, we were on a clearance operation, re-establishing a checkpoint… There’d been Afghan police force in there for a while. They pushed out because they kept getting hit, and we wanted to reinstall sort of a bit of stability and security in the area with coalition forces. So the Green Berets were operating in the area. So the American special forces were around, and they said ‘Oh, when you go past this hill, you guys are going to get shot up’…We were like ‘Oh great…that’s not very comforting’
As I’m getting carried on the stretcher, I could hear a little bit of sobbing behind me. You know, the boys are carrying my gear and what’s left in my kit. And I was like ‘F*ck…this is pretty shit…Like, this is bad’ and so I was sort of hoping I could say something to sort of keep a bit of banter going on…they’re good lads…they were sort of saying ‘You blew up your brand new boots’…then I said “Guys I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine… I’ll just go to the Paralympics or something.” And to give a bit of context to the time, right…we’ve had just had the Olympics, you know, Oscar Pistorius has just run in the London Olympics blowing everyone’s mind and then we’ve got the Paralympics in London coming in a few weeks and that’s sort of where we would come back from patrol and watch the games and stuff – it was pretty inspiring. So in that moment it was a “Boys, I’ll be fine. I’ll just go to the Paralympics”…it wasn’t a promise, it was a promise of hope…to say I’ll be okay. One of the boys, you know, shot back with some banter saying “You better be in the green and gold”…because being a Kiwi, you know your affinity.
Well when the Invictus Games spawned, you know, Prince Harry got it, got the idea in 2013 which was the year that I was a part of that process, and got into sport at the high performance sport. At the end of 2013 I was like, “All right, I’m going to try different things”. I tried paddling, I tried archery, I tried athletics, I tried basketball, swimming, but I ultimately wanted a sport that I really enjoyed and did when I was growing up, and that was paddling and being outside and on the water and enjoying it. And, you know, picked up the paddle in December 2013 and was thrown right into the mix, and Moscow and World Championships about eight, nine months later. So it was a very fast and accelerated experience, but at the same time, it was one that I found myself. I found purpose. I found a reason to get up in the morning. I found a team, I found community.. I think all of the things that I just spoke about, then, you know, sport can it, can bring all that together, and giving people goals and ambition beyond what people might think is possible for them, is super important.
Head Game launched in October 2023 with Ant sitting down with inspiring and interesting guests who have beaten the odds and achieved the impossible. Ant’s conversations have covered tales of survival, life-changing decisions and heroic stories with guests including Thai cave rescuer Richard Harris, Paul De Gelder, Jelena Dokic, Jackson Warne and Beaconsfield mine survivor, Todd Russell.
New episodes of Head Game are released weekly on Wednesday on the Nova Player or wherever you get your podcasts.
Images supplied.