Why a paralysed Special Forces veteran will never die

A Special Forces soldier left paralysed after being shot in Afghanistan has revealed that he rejected an opportunity to return home a fortnight earlier having taken a bullet in the shoulder.

Tough Toby Gutteridge, now 37, was raiding a compound in 2009 when he was shot clean through the neck, the bullet from an AK47 shattering his spinal cord.

His colleagues assumed he was dead and after he was flown from the battlefield medics and doctors gave him almost no chance of survival.

But the 24-year-old, whose childhood motto ‘never will I die’ is the title of his newly-released book, stunned the medical world by pulling through.

He was left paralysed from the neck down but remarkably suffered no brain damage and was able to learn how to speak again.

In his book he describes how two weeks before the incident he had discharged himself from a field hospital following treatment for his shoulder wound in order to re-join his unit.

It was during the next raid – a night-time assault on a Taliban compound – when his life changed for ever.

More than ten years later and following bouts of depression, Toby has penned a book about his life.

Brought up between South Africa, the US and Bournemouth, England, he flirted with drugs, drink and criminality before joining the Royal Marines.

He was extremely young to attempt Special Forces selection but passed on the first attempt and shortly afterwards was facing the Taliban in Afghanistan – his second tour.

Toby said: “I didn’t want to write a book but colleagues in the unit persuaded me that I had a story to tell – they said it was too good not to be told.

“It is tragic and horrible story but I hope it can help inspire others who find themselves in a bad place.

“The book’s title was a silly phrase my friends and I used to say to each other in South Africa, but now it is more relevant than ever.”

In the book Toby tells how the first bullet he took miraculously missed bones and arteries as it passed through his shoulder.

He wrote: “On minute I was running forward, eyeballing the enemy. The next I was flat on my back.”

He told a colleague he thought he’d been shot but was told to crack on.

Toby continued: “It was only during a lull in the fighting that I realised I had this crimson stuff running off the end of my rifle.

“… I had been shot, right through the muscle at the top of my shoulder – a so-called million dollar wound because it was a passport home without being life-threatening.”

He was evacuated by helicopter and patched up in the make-shift hospital, but refused the opportunity to return to the UK or recuperate properly.

Toby wrote: “I discharged myself, headed for the airfield, told them who I was and where I needed to go.”

On his next mission he was hit in the neck by the 7.62mm high-calibre bullet.

Recovery for the elite soldier was long and arduous with moments when his life hung by a thread.

But after receiving help for his mental health he took and passed A Levels – with top grades – then completed a business studies degree.

Toby now lives near Poole, Dorset, with his fiancé Savannah who he met she applied for a job to look after him.

He runs an extreme sports brand, aptly called ‘Bravery’, which produces ethical products including clothing and sunglasses and in future will offer equipment for adrenaline junkies. www.bravery.org.uk