Nurse who served in Afghanistan with son is now fighting coronavirus

EXCLUSIVE – ‘It’s just another kind of war’: Nurse who served alongside her son in Afghanistan is now back on a very different frontline – fighting coronavirus in UK

• Joan Glen, 61, spent four months in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in 2007
• The grandmother of six worked as a nurse treating badly wounded soldiers
• She is now on the front line again as a theatre nurse treating Covid-19 patients 
• Mrs Glen, from Cheshire, told MailOnline that people were dying without their loves ones by their side – just like in Afghanistan
• Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19

A hero nurse who served on the frontline in Afghanistan alongside her son is now fighting a ‘new war’ against coronavirus in an NHS hospital, MailOnline can reveal.

Joan Glen, 61, is doing gruelling 12-hour shifts wearing full PPE equipment as a theatre nurse treating Covid-19 patients.

The mother-of-three who lives near Chester says the circumstances are eerily similar to her experience treating badly injured soldiers in wartorn Afghanistan. 

‘It is just like a war here in our hospitals, just another kind of war,’ she said in an exclusive interview with MailOnline. 

‘It was frightening out there and it’s frightening here now – this is like a war but this is an invisible enemy. 

Joan Glen, a hero nurse who served on the frontline in Afghanistan alongside her son, is now fighting a ‘new war’ against coronavirus in an NHS hospital

The 61-year-old is doing gruelling 12-hour shifts wearing full PPE equipment as a theatre nurse treating Covid-19 patients at a hospital in Cheshire

‘Out in Afghanistan we were fighting the Taliban but this is a virus – you can’t see it but it’s deadly.’ 

Mrs Glen was a captain in the Liverpool 208 Unit of the Territorial Army serving as a theatre nurse for four months between July and October 2007.

She was based at Camp Bastion – the British base in notorious Helmand province where troops experienced ferocious battles against the Taliban.

Her son Christopher, then 22, served in Afghanistan at the same time and was injured when his helicopter crashed. Thankfully he was not badly hurt.

Mrs Glen, who has six grandchildren, came home shortly afterwards followed by Christopher and is now working at a Cheshire hospital where she has been treating Covid-19 patients for the last few months. 

She is now drawing on her battlefield experience to help her through the frontline battle against the coronavirus pandemic. 

Speaking from her home near Chester, Joan said: ‘When we were in Afghanistan we could see the enemy and there were attacks every day.

‘We could see who they were – they were the Taliban with bullets and bombs but here the virus is invisible.

‘Out there we had the tools to fight the enemy with all the material weapons we had but now we don’t really have weapons against the virus as there is no vaccine at the moment.

‘We have nothing to fight it with. But just like in Afghanistan we have casualties coming into our hospital.

‘It’s so sad that some patients are dying alone without their relatives. It is like Afghanistan where the soldiers died from their injuries without their loved one by their side.’ 

Mrs Glen was a captain in the Liverpool 208 Unit of the Territorial Army serving as a theatre nurse for four months between July and October 2007. She was based at Camp Bastion – the British base in notorious Helmand province where troops battled the Taliban

Her son Christopher, then 22, served in Afghanistan at the same time and was injured when his helicopter crashed. Thankfully he was not badly hurt

She is now drawing on her battlefield experience to help her through the frontline battle against the coronavirus pandemic. Pictured: With Ross Kemp

Mrs Glen said working in hot PPE also brought back memories of her time in Afghanistan

She added: ‘It was 52 degrees and it was difficult working in that heat. ‘But staff now are wearing PPE equipment for hours on end and it is very hot and difficult and uncomfortable.

‘The injuries were visible out there but you can’t see the injuries with coronavirus. ‘You don’t know whether you are going to get it and if you get it you don’t know how bad you are going to get it.

‘You just don’t know. Patients are scared – it is scary.’ 

Mrs Glen and her son are among the very few mothers and sons to have served simultaneously on the battlefield. 

Christopher, now 34, served as a senior aircraftman in the RAF’s tactical communications. but has now left the military.

Her other two sons also served in the RAF in Afghanistan but again have left the armed forces.

Mrs Glen, who worked as senior operating nursing sister at Clatterbridge Hospital on the Wirral, only joined the Territorial Army when a friend suggested it when her marriage fell apart in 2001.  

Mrs Glen said working in hot PPE also brought back memories of her time in Afghanistan She added: ‘It was 52 degrees and it was difficult working in that heat. ‘But staff now are wearing PPE equipment for hours on end and it is very hot and difficult and uncomfortable’

The grandmother of six added: ‘It’s so sad that some patients are dying alone without their relatives. It is like Afghanistan where the soldiers died from their injuries without their loved one by their side’

In 2006 her entire 80-strong TA unit was told it would take over the running of the military hospital at Camp Bastion for four months. ‘Having seen what I did in Afghanistan I am so much more aware of how lucky most of us are,’ she added. ‘But this is a new test for us’

In 2006 her entire 80-strong TA unit was told it would take over the running of the military hospital at Camp Bastion for four months. 

Mrs Glen said it was a ‘terrifying prospect’ made all the more nerve-wracking by the news that Christopher would also been deployed two weeks after her.

In Camp Bastion she worked side-by-side with the doctors as they operated on soldiers who had been wounded in explosions, vehicle crashes, or fierce fighting with the Taliban. 

But one day she received an email from Christopher saying he had been injured a few hundreds miles away. 

It just read: ‘Mum, I’ve been in an accident. Our helicopter crashed. It was pretty terrifying and the aircraft is destroyed but I’m OK, don’t worry. It was a lucky escape.’ 

Mrs Glen said: ‘It was very scary for me but thankfully he wasn’t badly hurt. His commanding couldn’t believe it when he told him his next of kin was in Camp Bastion.’

Back in the UK, she remarried Ian Glen and the couple were together for six years before Ian died from cancer in 2016.  

‘Having seen what I did in Afghanistan I am so much more aware of how lucky most of us are,’ she added. ‘But this is a new test for us.’

Mrs Glen, who is widowed, said she was very proud to work for the NHS alongisde her colleagues: ‘They are absolutely fabulous and brave. And it is wonderful when people come out to clap for us on Thursday nights’

‘Social distancing is difficult for everyone. I miss my family now – I miss not seeing my grandkids but I didn’t see my family when I was in Afghanistan too.

‘But I’m very proud of being a nurse at the moment and very proud of all my colleagues.

‘They are absolutely fabulous and brave. And it is wonderful when people come out to clap for us on Thursday nights. 

‘They have done it in my street and it is very emotional.’ 

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