Dinwiddie resident severly injured in Iraq , A county resident was severely injured while fighting in Iraq Jan. 18.
Matthew Bradford, 20, was serving in the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines in Haditha, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device exploded.
http://www.progress-index.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17781782&BRD=2271&PAG=461&dept_id=462946&rfi=6
BY T. DEVON ROBINSON
STAFF WRITER
01/30/2007
“He and his company were on patrol on foot when an IED (explosive device) went off,” said Matthew’s father, David, on a Web site created to keep track of Matthew’s condition.
“Matt was sent to the Iraq field hospital for immediate surgery then the next day on to Germany for overnight stay and more emergency surgery then, on Sunday, Jan. 21, flown to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Maryland.”
Matthew has had both legs amputated, has damage to his small intestine, has a ruptured bladder, shrapnel in his left elbow and right wrist, broken bones in his right hand, has lost his left eye and has a small piece of shrapnel in his right eye that may cause vision loss.
He also has another small piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain had has been gradually taken out of a medically-induced coma he was placed in during the week of Jan. 21, Bradford said.
There is no word on how long Matthew will remain in the hospital. He has several more surgeries to undergo.
“He has a long fight ahead of him,” said Teri Sadler, a family friend.
Matthew was a 2005 graduate of Dinwiddie High School. Barbara Pittman, principal of the high school, said that he played tennis and football for the school.
“He was a nice, personable, well-mannered young man,” Pittman said.
She said that it was obviously that he wanted to join the military even when he was a sophomore. He told his father that as well and joined the Marines under delayed enlistment before graduating.
“He was proud to serve his country and proud to be a Marine,” Sadler said.
On Matthew’s MySpace page and on the site his father set up, friends, relatives and complete strangers have left numerous thoughts, prayers and words of encouragement.
As of early Monday evening, there were over 150 messages in the online guest book on his father’s site and over 1,700 visitors.
“One of our goals is for him to see the prayers left for him on the Web site,” Sadler said.
You may leave a message of prayer and support for Matthew here:
http://www.caringbridge.org/cb/inputSiteName.do?method=search&siteName=mbradford