NursingLink

News >> Browse Articles >> Nurse Features

Hero Soldier to Marry Nurse Who Saved Him

He was the hero soldier who lost his leg fighting in Afghanistan. She was the nurse who helped him get his life back on track.

Now, Lance Corporal Jonathan Lee and Poppy Morris are in love – and dreaming of marriage.

The pair met after Lance Cpl Lee “died” twice as his heart stopped in a rescue helicopter after he was blown up by a Taliban landmine in Helmand.

His right leg was amputated below the knee and he fought for his life for weeks at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, where Poppy, 20, was a trainee civilian nurse.

Yesterday they revealed how his terrible injury brought them together.

Jonathan, 25, said: “We love each other and want to spend the rest of our lives together.

Losing my leg was devastating but if it hadn’t happened, I’d never have met Poppy.”

Jonathan tracked down Poppy on a computer networking site after she left his ward two days after they met.

Poppy removed 30 stitches from him four weeks after his leg was amputated but ignored his attempts to chat her up.

“I fancied her straight away but she blanked me,” said Jonathan, who was injured serving with the 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment in November last year. “I thought: ‘She’s the one’. Two days later I was gutted to find out she’d left to work at another hospital.”

But Jonathan knew Poppy’s name from her uniform and did a search for her on the web. He said: “I crossed my fingers – and her picture popped up on my screen. So I sent her a message.”

Poppy said: “I was shocked and thought I’d get into trouble. I said I couldn’t see him but he kept messaging.

“We talked like that for two months.

Then, as he wasn’t my patient any more, we went on a date.”

Jonathan was shuttling between home in Newark, Notts, and MoD rehab, Surrey, where he was learning to use a carbon fibre artificial leg. He’s now hoping to return to active duty after rehab.

“We’ve been together for six months and I know we’ll get married one day,” says Poppy. “I worry he’ll go back to Afghanistan, but I’m proud of him.”

(c) YellowBrix 2008

---