A New Zealand soldier fighting in Ukraine is facing months of rehab after being hit five times by shrapnel and bullets while fighting in the Donetsk Oblast region.
Former Defence Force infantry soldier Shannon Dillon has been fighting at the frontline for morethan a year but has spent much of the last few weeks in hospital.
He has already had three surgeries and is facing more to remove the shrapnel lodged in his body.
Dillon and his unit were tasked with taking a village as part of a larger operation to secure a foothold into a supply line into a major Russian-held city.
Of his team of 39 soldiers, two were killed and 28 were injured in the mission.
“I took shrapnel in my shin, shrapnel through my knee, shrapnel through my leg. A bullet through my hip that hit my bone and went down my leg and ended up behind my knee.
“Shrapnel or a bullet, I’m not sure which one it is, went through my hip, and a big chunk of my forearm was blown out.
“I think that’s about it. I got hit by five or six different things, so it was hard to keep count.”
He said he remembered the whole ordeal but also had the benefit of being able to watch the attack back from body camera footage.
“Unfortunately, it’s the nature of the beast.
“Sometimes you get them, sometimes they get you, but it’s still never really that fun when you’re on the receiving end.
“We were taking accurate fire and accurate mortar fire and suicide drones, and it was considerably more than we first guessed.
“I mean we suspected there to be a few, but we came up against a much larger force than we intended.”
Dillon has a long road to recovery. He’s suffered significant nerve damage to his leg and arm.
