'Invictus saved my life'

When Garry Robinson is competing, it’s the people who can’t be there who inspire him the most.

“They’re always on my mind,” he said quietly. “And they give me the courage and the drive to keep going.”

A sniper team commander with Australia’s Special Forces, Sergeant Garry Robinson DSM was severely wounded in a Blackhawk helicopter crash in Afghanistan in 2010. Four others were killed, including his best mate, Private Benjamin Chuck.

Garry was lucky to survive, and spent more than two years in hospital; but today his image adorns a banner on the front of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra as he competes at the Invictus Games in Sydney.

“Invictus saved my life,” Garry said. “I was coming from a pretty bad place … and when the first Invictus Games came about in 2014, I had no idea what it was, or what it was for, but within three weeks I was on a plane to London and meeting Prince Harry for the first time.

“It was overwhelming at times, but when I met him, one on one, and shook his hand, that was very special. I always just thought, how does someone like me meet royalty, someone like him? But as time has gone on and we’ve been fortunate enough to go to the following Invictus Games, I’ve got to know him well enough that he calls me by my first name, and I feel honoured to have that acknowledgment.”

For Garry, it’s been a long road to recovery which continues to this day.

“I’ve got no recollection of the accident at all,” he said. “In my mind, I’m still alive, fighting in the battle, two or so weeks beforehand. I’ve got no memory closer than that, but the thing that I always think about is: Why did I survive? How did I survive?

“The injuries I sustained, a normal person wouldn’t have survived, and I thank the military for [giving me] the resilience that got me through.

“There were times there where I thought that I was going to give up, and I almost did give up, but that resilience in turn gave me the strength to keep going.”

The last thing he remembers before the crash is taking part in the Shah Wali Kot offensive a few weeks before.

“I can’t recall flying out of there, going back to base, preparing for the next job, and flying there and crashing,” Garry said. “But in my mind, I can still vividly see the ground on the battle field at Shah Wali Kot… Every night, every day, at some point I think about it, and I think I’m still there.

“I know I’m not there now, but I get that vision, and it’s all still there, right down to details where I can see myself walking off the helicopter, every wall I climbed over, every house I went around.

“I’ve replayed it in my mind, every day, every night, so it’s always there. I can’t let it go. And I don’t want to … My mate isn’t still alive, and that’s probably why I am hanging onto it so much. It’s so vivid, I can still picture him there, and everything before that I’ve got in my mind as well. That’s the last time he was alive that I can remember, and that’s the reason I won’t forget it. I think of him every day.”

Garry suffered horrific injuries in the crash, including a severe traumatic brain injury and multiple bone fractures. He’d fractured his lower spine, sacrum, eight ribs, both shoulder blades and his left leg, which was later amputated below the knee.  He also suffered severe internal bleeding, a punctured lung, and had to have his spleen removed. He was in an induced coma at a military hospital in Germany for four weeks and spent the next two years in hospital.

Back home in Australia, his wife Katrina had just got home from picking up their three children – Rebekah, Carly and Joshua – from school when an officer, a padre, and one of Garry’s mates came to their house in western Sydney.

“You knew someone coming to your door wasn’t going to bring good news,” Katrina said. “You hear of people getting wounded or whatever on TV, and you think, okay, no one’s come to me … but then they came, and they explained about the accident, and that some had died, and that he was really seriously injured.”

Garry and Katrina had been together since they first met while working at a local supermarket as 17-year-olds – “It was never really a question of not being together,” Katrina said – and within days of the crash, she was on a plane to Germany.

“Even the whole idea of just being in a plane and knowing that it was an aircraft that was in the accident [was hard], so I remember just getting in the plane and the tears flowing,” she said. “I wanted to get there as quick as we could, but the idea of actually getting on the plane, and then having no contact for 20 hours or whatever it was, was really hard because you didn’t know, when you got an update on the other end, what it was going to be … It was just something that you had to take day by day because everything was just changing all the time.”

She managed to get updates in between flights and a doctor was there to meet her when she landed. “While we were there, I sent a photo back to the kids of what he looked like so that when he did get sent back to Australia, they would know what to expect,” she said.  “I wasn’t sure whether to do that, or whether to even take photos.  What if it didn’t end up good? Were these the last photos I wanted? All that went through your head at the time, but now, looking back, I’m glad I took those photos for him as well so that he could see how much he was improving and … what he was like at his worst.”

When they returned to Australia, Garry spent two months in intensive care at Sydney’s Westmead Hospital before beginning his rehabilitation.

“It was pretty tough,” Garry said. “It was never an easy day. There were days there when I just thought, why, why, why, but the old me was what gave me the strength and the resilience to keep going, irrespective of setback after setback.

“There were times there, earlier in the piece, where I felt like giving up. I spent a lot of time in hospital in a room by myself, contemplating. There were a lot of times where I had no one to talk to, and the people I did have to talk to were just voices in my mind.

“Katrina would go home and I’d lay in bed and think, why did I survive? I was constantly in some sort of pain, so I was never away from pain, and I just thought, why did I survive? The sense of guilt was falling into me, and then a few months later, I started refocussing, speaking with the psychologist and the psychiatrist, just to get my mind in the right headspace: I’m still alive, and I’m alive for a reason, and let’s make the most of it. So I just slowly chipped away at it, and it’s helped me get to where I am today.”

He credits his family and the medical staff for helping him through it all.

“Even when Garry was back in Australia and stabilised, you just took it day by day,” Katrina said. “There was always something that would go good and then there would be a little setback.

“There were many times when he just didn’t want to get out of bed. He was in ICU for two months, and then when he went to the rehab hospital, there were many sessions where he’d say [to me], ‘Go and tell them I’m sick,’ and he’d just stay in bed, but they were pretty consistent with him and they knew when I said that what it meant.

“I was there pretty much from 10 til 8 every day, so [the staff] were our day in and day out: they were a big part of our everyday … and they were just like family.”

Returning home and coming to terms with his new life was another challenge he had to face.

“It was very hard,” Garry said. “I was at the top of my [field] … and it was hard to realise that the old Garry’s gone and the new Garry’s here, so trying to realise that, and to restructure my life to compensate for that … was definitely hard. There was just a constant feeling of being frustrated, and it was a combination of being frustrated with myself, of dealing with the brain injury, and realising what I can and can’t do.”

Whether it was the dog barking, or a pen being dropped, or the kids being argumentative with each other, Garry found it difficult to cope with as he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.

“He didn’t have that coping mechanism, and he was frustrated at that,” Katrina said. “He wanted to be independent, but he needed help to pretty much do everything, and then when he couldn’t do it himself, he’d get frustrated because he had to rely on other people. He needed my help, but he was almost pushing it away.”

It was the love and support of his family, and his passion for sport and international competition that gave him a new lease on life and the will to fight on.

“I was coming towards the end of my rehab in the military and my rehabilitation staff said to me, ‘How would you like to compete or enter into the Invictus Games?’ I had no idea what it was, but they gave me a brief outline of what it was all about and who was organising it and then I filled out my application form – and within weeks I was on a plane to London,” he said. “I had no idea what I was getting myself in for, but coming from a very competitive background before the accident, it was the best thing for me, to get back into the saddle so to speak.”

He had competed in international triathlons before the crash, and had to learn how to swim again and how to ride a bike as part of his rehab before the games.

“I had to pick three sports, and coming from my background, I knew that I was a good swimmer and a good cyclist so I picked those two sports and I picked archery ... because of my military background,” he said. “I was a very good shooter, and I thought I could adapt what I learnt through the military and apply it in archery … because I thought it would be the next best thing to shooting.”

At first, he couldn’t swim more than 50 metres in the rehab pool, and was lucky to get from one driveway to the next with his wife holding onto the bike, but he was determined to do his best.

“After competing in London it gave me that drive and sense of belonging again, so when I came home I was thought, yes, I want to train and get back into sport,” he said. “Cycling was my passion for so long, so I got back into cycling and within a short period of time I bought myself a new bike … and within four or five months I became national champion in Australia and it gave me a new sense of belonging – I realised the old Garry was still there, irrespective of the disabilities I have today.”

He credits the Invictus Games, which was founded by Prince Harry as an international sporting event for wounded, injured or ill veterans and active service personnel, for changing his life.

“Before the Invictus Games, I was definitely in the shadows,” Garry said. “I wouldn’t talk to people … because of my brain injury, and I had lurked in the shadows for so long. But as time went on I slowly came out of those shadows, and was more than happy … and that is what gave me the strength and sense of belonging.

“The camaraderie that we have, irrespective of what injuries we have, it is like one big family… And that mateship and camaraderie between fellow soldiers … is what I miss and what I long for.”

His father and grandfather had both served, and he remembers being thrilled when he himself joined the army in 1994. “Growing up I always wanted to be in some sort of service, whether it was the police or the military,” he said. “I was 21, and within three days [of applying] I was accepted, and I was on a bus to Kapooka. All I wanted to do was infantry and become a soldier, and it all started from there. I wanted to serve my country in some shape or form and infantry for me was it.”

His son has since joined the army, as have his son-in-law and his youngest daughter’s boyfriend.

“It’s ingrained in me,” Garry said. “There’s no getting away from it, and I don’t want to get away from it. It’s been my life for so long, it is my life.”

Despite the accident, he still has fond memories of his three deployments to Afghanistan. “I loved it,” he said. “And I’d go back in a heartbeat if I could.

“I come to places like [the Memorial] and this is where I get all my strength from. I was in the Memorial the other day, and I got that emotional. Every time I go in there, and I see the helicopter crash, and the account in there, and I see Ben’s name on the wall … and I’ve just got to walk out. It’s too emotional. But the resilience, I’ve gained from the military, I think has saved my life.

“This place here is the only place I can come, and I know Ben and the rest of the guys are here. There’s a piece of the aircraft in there … and knowing it’s there, seeing it’s there, it does get quite emotional [for me], but this is the only place I can come to and feel like the rest of the boys are here with me, so I’m very thankful that there is something on display here and people can acknowledge that. It gives me peace of mind that Ben is still here … Ben was one of my best soldiers. He was very adaptable. I didn’t have to tell him what to do. He knew what to do and how to do it. He was my best mate ... and I think of him every day.”

For Garry, being able to honour his memory and compete at the Invictus Games in Sydney is particularly special. “Coming home to home soil, all my friends and family, doctors, nurses and everybody who saw me through my worst, can actually see what I can do today,” he said. “I’m thankful to them for supporting me and helping me through my recovery; and having these people on the sidelines, irrespective of if I win or lose, I’m more than happy.”

He now has his sights on the Paralympics and hopes that by sharing his story he can help others.

“The biggest winners you see at Invictus are the ones who come last, you can see they’ve worked really hard just to get to the finish line, and they’re the ones who inspire the rest of the world, and that’s what I want, I want to inspire people,” he said.  

“It is my life now: my whole life revolves around sport … and there aren’t enough hours in the day … I just make the best of what I’ve got, and what makes me better is being fitter.

“Whether I’m first or last, it’s the inspiration of the day. And, for me, that is far better than winning a gold medal... So I’ll just keep training and be the best I can be.”

The Invictus Games is on in Sydney until 27 October 2018.