Canadian injured on patrol in Afghanistan (20 March 2007)

[GAP]

Canadian injured on patrol in Afghanistan
Updated Tue. Mar. 20 2007 3:29 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

A Canadian soldier in Afghanistan suffered "non-life-threatening injuries" Tuesday when an explosives-detection dog set off a roadside bomb, said the Canadian Forces.

The dog was killed by the blast, Canadian Forces spokesperson Lt. (Navy) John Nethercott told reporters, and the dog's handler was "very seriously injured."

Nethercott would not disclose the handler's nationality, but he said the dog team is from a foreign company -- American Canine -- subcontracted by the Canadian Forces to support Joint Task Force Afghanistan operations.

The soldier and handler were transported by helicopter to hospital at the Kandahar Airfield military base for treatment. "The next of kin of both the soldier and the dog handler have been notified," Nethercott said.

The chain of events began earlier in the day when a Canadian Coyote reconnaissance, while on a routine patrol near Ahmadkhan -- a village west of Kandahar City -- struck and detonated an IED (improvised explosive device).

"It was an armoured vehicle but the explosion was big enough to disable the vehicle," reported CTV's Paul Workman in Kandahar.

No one was injured in that explosion. But the team of bomb-sniffing dogs was brought in to search for other explosives on the road while they readied to return the vehicle to the Kandahar base. During the course of that search, one of the dogs detonated another bomb.

The Canadian soldier has not been identified but is from the Second Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment.

Workman reports that dog teams are used every day to assist soldiers, to search for hidden bombs.

Nethercott said the team today was "conducting dismounted route clearance to get to the location of this earlier strike'' when the second explosion happened."
More on link

 

[scottishcanuck]

Get well soon RIP dog, it wasnt your fault :'(

 

[Donut]

I wonder how many Canadian and Allied soldiers owe their lives to these service dogs, in this conflict alone?

Get well soon, troops.

Rip Fido.  Good boy.

 

[Matt_Fisher]

May he have a speedy and full recovery.  Rest in Peace canine brother. 

 

[Gnr_Harrison]

Get Better Soon and God bless

 

[CdnArtyWife]

Get well soon, troops.

Keeping my fingers and toes crossed and saying prayers for all the troops I know over there...there are too many to count.

Its a shame about the furry friend, RIP pup!

CAW

 

[3rd Horseman]

Speedy recover troops, RIP Fido.

 

[harry8422]

Get well soon soldier and R.I.P my canine comrad

 

[mckee19]

you have to think that loosing the canine will be hard for the handler, they become quite attached working together all the time, like loosing a best friend

get well soon troops 
RIP doggy 

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Hope it wasn't Van the dog handler.

 

[MikeM]

Hope it wasn't any of the ones I worked with either, sucks that it was someone either way.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Get well soon, troops, and condolences to the dog handler - in addition to his physical injuries, I have to imagine the bond becomes pretty strong when working with one of these beasts, so the emotional hurt must be all that much greater during such a loss...

 

[NL_engineer]

Get well soon my friend, see you when you get home.

CHIMO

 

[Nfld Sapper]

Found an update in the globe about this incidient. The name of the injured Canadian has been identified and he is doing well. BTW Sgt. Herritt is from my unit.

Arcticle Link

The perils of sniffing out safety on Afghan roads
JOE FRIESEN

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Sergeant Sheldon Herritt stared through his ballistic glasses at the ground ahead. Something wasn't right.

An expert in roadside-bomb detection, he had been summoned to the scene of a Canadian convoy stuck on a stretch of road in Panjwai. A few hours earlier, a Coyote surveillance vehicle had struck a mine and gone off the road. The soldiers were trying to recover it, but they had to ensure there weren't more mines in the way. It was painstakingly slow, and in three hours they still hadn't reached the Coyote.

Sgt. Herritt turned to the soldiers massed behind him and called for a bomb-sniffing dog. He had worked with dogs in the past, always with success. But he had never met this crew before, a U.S. handler and his German shepherd. They worked for American K-9, a private company hired by the Canadian military to do dangerous work.

Sgt. Herritt brought the man and dog forward to the site, then pushed everyone else 20 metres back.
What happened next left Sgt. Herritt and the dog handler in hospital. The dog met a worse fate. It was not the kind of thing the sergeant had any reason to expect.

An engineer with 12 years in the Forces, Sgt. Herritt is the first line of defence in a war that, suicide bombers aside, is fought at a distance, against an invisible enemy.

Roadside bombs are one of the Taliban's most effective weapons. The risk involved in planting them is minimal, and they can inflict significant damage to coalition forces and Afghan police and army vehicles.

He focused his eyes once more on the suspicious area. He watched the dog approach the spot, and prepared for it to react. If it barked, he'd clear the site and call for the bomb-disposal unit, whose robots and heavily protected personnel are scarce assets in war.

He waited. The dog stepped closer, snuffling its way along the ground. Maybe it's a bluff, he thought. Maybe it's the innocent remains of a day's work for a local farmer. The dog took another step. It was right on top of it.

And then it blew.

The blast wave hit Sgt. Herritt like a baseball bat to the chest, throwing him through the air before planting him backward on the ground.

He lay in the dust for a moment, thinking he was dead. And then the next breath came, and he knew he was alive. He looked down to check his limbs. They were all still there. A surge of adrenaline raced through him. He jumped up to take charge of the scene.

He saw the dog handler lying on the ground and badly injured. He screamed for a medic, who came running up from the convoy. He scanned the ground for the dog, but it had been blown to pieces.

And then he looked down again, and saw the dark stain of blood seeping through his camouflage. Assured that the other wounded were being treated, he limped back to the safety of the convoy and lay down under the cover of an armoured vehicle.

A medic cut open his pants, revealing a tennis-ball-sized chunk of flesh missing from his right leg. There was a gaping wound of a similar size in his left arm. His face was bloody, and a hole had been blown through his left ear.

The medic slipped off the vest of body armour covering Sgt. Herritt's vital organs. He could see it was peppered with shrapnel on the outside. Amazingly, nothing penetrated the armour.

He and the wounded dog handler were whisked away by helicopter and treated at the Canadian-run hospital at Kandahar Airfield. Sgt. Herritt underwent two successful operations. The dog handler survived, but was in serious condition.

It was a day when Canadians were told briefly of a soldier who suffered only minor injuries. Sgt. Herritt chuckles wryly at the description. Nobody asked him how minor the injuries are, he said.

A week later, he's limping severely, but is able to move around with a cane. Scabs have formed on his face, and his wounds are bandaged.

He said he still can't quite believe the bomb went off. Sniffing dogs are normally very reliable. But in this case, the dog triggered the explosive.

At first he lay awake at night, wondering if everything was done correctly. He's convinced he did everything he could, and his superiors have reassured him that he did. It came down to the dog, and the dog made a mistake, he said.

"The dog was doing his job, and for whatever reason he was having an off day. I don't know why he missed it but he did. It happened."

Sgt. Herritt said he plans to stay in Afghanistan, rather than go home to recuperate. He considers himself lucky to be in such relative health, and wants to get back into battle as quickly as possible. "Being a section commander, you want to look after the guys in your section," he said. "I'm their boss but I'm also their caregiver in a way."

Two more Canadians were injured this week when a Canadian convoy was fired on by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, then hit by a suicide car bomb as it moved through "Ambush Alley" in southern Afghanistan.