Emma Cowing

Five years ago, I was pronounced dead in Afghanistan. This is what I’ve learned since

My heart stopped. Then I really started to live

Photo: Ian Rutherford

Just over five years ago, I was pronounced dead on the front line in Afghanistan. I had collapsed with acute heatstroke in temperatures of 52°C during a military foot patrol. I am a reporter not a soldier, but for four minutes, as a medic attempted to restart my stopped heart, I was a category A. That’s Army speak for ‘goner’.

Six days later, as much to my own surprise as to that of the incredible soldiers who saved my life, I walked out of Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham on my father’s arm and into the cool of an English late summer’s evening. It was starting to rain. Cars were beeping on a nearby dual carriageway. The smell of cut grass mingled with that of an overflowing bin on which a seagull was solemnly picking at a kebab. I thought it was wonderful.

There in the drizzle, wearing an ill-fitting raincoat over my backless hospital gown, I found myself standing in awe of this most underwhelming of British landscapes. Life after death has changed me — as a reporter, and as a person. The mundane seems suddenly wonderful. I no longer have an interest in going to combat areas, military charities receive a grateful wedge of my monthly salary and I’m less keen on sunbathing.

I am incredibly fortunate. I suffered a cardiac arrest and complete liver and respiratory failure. I spent 18 hours in a coma at a military field hospital before being med-evaced out of the war zone. It is only because of the professionalism of the British Army that I am alive to write these words. While well-meaning people like to inform those of us who have dodged death that we must make the most of our second chance at life — stand for election, start a company, save the world — this seems entirely to miss the point of living.

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