A British soldier has described how he narrowly escaped death when a Taliban bullet hit his radio during a front-line firefight.
Corporal Paddy Dyson, 28, was pinned down in a field after his patrol came under attack and had to crawl 50 yards to save his life after returning fire.
The Corporal, from Leeds, said: ‘The Taliban fire had been accurate all day.
'As the patrol came to an end, we were shot at from two different points simultaneously.
‘As the last man in the patrol, I found myself pinned to the ground in the middle of a ploughed field with the nearest cover being a wall 50 yards away.
'The rounds were landing very close, and one even hit my backpack radio antenna.
‘I just flipped on to my side to fire back and then began crawling for my life.
‘Somehow, I made it and launched myself over the other side and into cover,’ added Cpl Dyson, second-in-command of 6 Platoon B Company, 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment.
The incident happened near a checkpoint at Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand province, as British soldiers and Afghan police patrolled a Taliban-held village.
Once Cpl Dyson was safe, the soldiers and police fired mortars against the enemy positions, and the insurgents fled.
