Retired Army Staff Sgt. Travis Mills is one of only five quadruple amputees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to have survived his injuries, largely thanks to the donated blood he received in a hospital in Kandahar.
In April 2012, a “normal day at work turned ugly” for Army Staff Sgt. Travis Mills. He and members of his paratrooper battalion in the 82nd Airborne Division were on routine patrol in Afghanistan when an improvised explosive device went off.
He remembers regaining consciousness a few seconds later and hearing his medic call out for help to place tourniquets on his legs and arms.
“I knew I was hit,” he said.
“I lifted my left arm and saw it was kind of tattered up pretty good.”
When he saw his hand, he knew it wasn’t good. He wondered if he would ever see his baby girl again.
Mills lost a lot of blood that day. Without a massive infusion of new blood, he said, he probably would not have made it home.
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