As long as humans have lived together, there have been wars, and injured soldiers
and civilians. Emergency medicine and rehabilitation programmes have had to keep
pace with advanced war zones and domestic terrorism. We are able to bring people
back from ever closer encounters with mortality but how do we do it, and what happens when you reach the threshold of life and death – and come back?
Emily Mayhew is a military medical historian specialising in the study of severe casualty, its infliction, treatment and long-term outcomes.
Harry Parker, author of the fictional Anatomy of a Soldier, joined the British Army at 23 and served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Captain when he lost his legs to an improvised explosive device (IED).
Ross Moy is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at The John Radcliffe Hospital and Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army.