'Every day is a horror': Nurse who spent months at heart of Gaza conflict reveals human devastation
Warning: This story contains details of death and injuries, including relating to children, that some people might find upsetting
A nurse who spent six months at the heart of the Gaza conflict has described the horrors he saw as he and his colleagues gave their all to save lives amid the carnage. David Anderson, who is from Rutland, was part of the UK Government's humanitarian response to the crisis - and he has just been made an OBE in the King's New Year's Honours list for his efforts.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said the 55-year-old, who is the disaster and conflict lead for a charity called UK-Med, had played a "key role" in the establishment last year of two emergency field hospitals it has funded in Gaza. The hospitals, in Al Mawasi and Deir El Balah, have treated more than 350,000 patients, the FCDO said.
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In an interview published by the department this week as hopes build for a ceasefire, David described the horrors he witnessed. He said: "You see so many difficult or dramatic injuries - arms, legs, multiple amputations, quite a lot of cases where bullets have ripped through the abdomen. We treated a three-year-old girl with a bullet in her neck. The bullet had passed through the family's makeshift tent, passed transversely through the mum's hip then breast before lodging itself in the neck of the child.
"It's quite frankly a miracle they survived and the bullet was lodged just millimetres from the little girl's spinal cord. It took three hours of surgery to remove the bullet. It was only because it had gone through mum twice that the velocity had slowed sufficiently not to cause more serious damage to the child." The youngster, Razan, is now making a full recovery after having the 7.92mm bullet removed, the FCDO said.
David added: "The family's story was heart-breaking. They'd fled northern Gaza when their apartment was hit by an airstrike at the beginning of the war.
"They had to step over dead bodies as they made their way south and had been displaced three times by the time they finally reached Al Mawasi. They thought they had found safety - but they were wrong."
Not all casualties rushed into the FCDO-funded emergency field hospitals have been as lucky as Razan. David said: "After an explosion, you have quite a lot of bystanders come in with lots of different body parts they've gathered up that have been blown off. I think they think we might be able to re-attach them, but all you can really do is take them and hope there is some way to identify the person so they can have a dignified burial.
"I think the most difficult cases are where a child dies. I remember a seven-year-old kid with three big bullets that had ripped through their chest and gone straight out her back. An uncle carried her in distraught, but I would have defied the best trauma surgeon in the world to have saved them.
"All we could do was make her as presentable as possible, get the extruded lungs off of them, and clean her up so the family could at least hold a hand that isn't covered in blood and add to the horror for them. Every day is horror in Gaza right now.
"In a strange way you kind of get used to the sound of bombs when you work in Gaza. I was in a meeting in Lebanon when there was a loud explosion and I just carried on while everyone else was like, 'Oh my God'. I don't say that to be big-headed or anything, but it was simply because I'd just spent six months in Gaza and that is just background noise.
"I wouldn't say you get used to it because that would be an absolute lie, but you start to recognise what the different bangs or explosions are, whether it's a gunship helicopter firing rounds or a bomb exploding, how far away it's happening. There's a difference between a relatively large explosion going off a kilometre away and one going off 100 metres away.
"I remember UK-Med CEO David Wightwick and I were on an early visit discussing where we could place our first mobile clinics and an explosion went off about 150 metres away, quite a big one. We just sort of looked at each other as the wave hit and little bits of debris struck us and we just said, 'Right, well'.
"What else can you do? If it's your time, it's your time. The first time it happened to me, I found it a difficult thing to cope with. It's terrifying. I struggle to describe the feeling now but so many people have not been so lucky when bombs have landed."
The FCDO said the UK Government had called for more aid to enter Gaza. The Government allocated £5.5million last year to UK-Med to fund its life-saving work in Gaza until April. The UK has also lifted the pause on funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), releasing £21 million to supply emergency food, shelter and other support for three million people, as well as its wider work supporting six million Palestinian refugees across the region.
Of the conflict's new ceasefire agreement, David said: "This ceasefire, however precarious, is a hugely significant step toward relief for those affected. The people of Gaza have faced 15 months of continuous bombardment, leaving countless civilians displaced, millions in need of aid and an already fragile healthcare system in shambles.
"UK-Med continues to work tirelessly, providing emergency medical services and training local healthcare providers. I saw first-hand the transformative work of our field hospitals in giving life-saving care, quite literally saving lives and limbs.
"The scale of need remains staggering. My sincere hope is that the humanitarian response addresses the immense and ongoing challenges for the people."
David's OBE reflects his services to the UK's emergency response to humanitarian crises in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine and the world's worst Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone in 2014. He said of the award: "I'm shocked but also honoured to have received an OBE from the King in the New Year's Honours list. It is also a reflection on the hard work and dedication of the whole team at UK-Med, both current and past, who support our work globally to ensure access to healthcare where it is most needed."
He added: "I do genuinely want to thank the FCDO because without them we would not have got in. The ongoing funding has allowed us to treat over 350,000 patients and save countless lives. There were people having traumatic amputations on kitchen tables before we set up."
UK-Med has launched a Middle East Crisis Appeal, which has so far raised £200,000, and is calling for donations from the British public to support its work in Gaza. To view or donate, visit: https://www.uk-med.org/