Daily Telegraph article on Cpl Miskella's actions which led to the award of an MC

Daily Telegraph 3 October 2011

A soldier who carried a wounded comrade on his shoulder to safety while under withering fire has been awarded the Military Cross.

Corporal Darragh Miskella, 25, was shot at by insurgents in ten firing positions as he carried the casualty across a rooftop in full view of the gunmen.

Bullets cracked passed his ears and impacted the roof around him as he handed the man, who had been shot in the pelvis, down a ladder.

The Corporal from Birmingham had been directing a platoon of 23 men to protect a helicopter sent to rescue 11 Afghan civilians wounded in an insurgent grenade attack.

Cpl Miskella of 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment said: "The man next to me was firing his machine gun at the enemy when he just turned to me and said 'I've been hit."

"There was a lot of blood pouring from the wound in his pelvis. He didn't cry out or anything, he just told me what had happened. I had to get him out of there."

Corporal Miskella, whose childhood ambition had been to join the fire brigade, used a fireman's lift to scuttle the wounded soldier to safety.

He said of the incident which happened in November last year near Nad e Ali in Helmand Province, Afghanistan: "I could hear the enemy rounds going by. But you are so busy you don't think about it, you just get on with it. When we got him into cover with the medics, he was mainly concerned that no one should nick the packet of Oreos out of his back pack."

Cpl Miskella later went to visit him in hospital and the wounded man has since made a full recovery and is back at work.

The Parachute Regiment soldier said: "He did thank me for what I did but I have noticed that he hasn't bought me a pint yet. Joking aside I would have done the same thing for anyone and I would do it again without giving it a moment's thought."