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yet another example of his compassionate nature. He explained: “Part of the reason I joined the RAF
was to test myself in hard situations be it wartime or natural disaster. You test yourself quite hard treating injured service personnel. You try to be profession- al at all times and do the best for them. You switch into a mindset and perhaps I was lucky in doing it in those days when you didn’t have mobile phones and the internet, because you had to switch off from your home life completely. You’ve got to be in the zone - you’re in a tent thousand of miles from home, there are people being killed and injured around you and you’re looking aſter them. Tat’s a thing you have to deal with I suppose. I’ve never had a huge problem [with it] my- self, I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lot of time in A&E and I’ve been to Ethiopia – I’ve seen a lot of tough things. Children dying of malnutrition is pretty tough. You have to think about it and talk about it. Tese are real people and real children. But in a way you have to move on. You do what you can but you can’t do everything.” His experience led to Dr Mozumder becoming a
trustee of the Help for Heroes charity and the RNLI’s first ever Medical Director whose responsibilities include the mental health of crews. “It is a huge privilege to be the Medical Director of this amazing char- ity with such great people, particularly in our 200th anniversary year,” he said. Looking aſter the health and welfare
of service personnel and veterans has improved but still more must be done, Dr Mozumder believes. “We probably need to think harder about
40-feet below a Sea King helicopter on a seized winch cable when the outside temperature was below freezing and noticed 10 feet below me two very larger killer whales eyeing me up!”
it because people have to see some pretty hor- rible things and they are damaged by that. Sometimes it’s the same with lifeboat crews. It’s much tougher than what you see on Saving Lives at Sea because many of them are rescuing people who have self harmed - people who jump off bridges and cliffs, people who are very badly injured. “We also recover a lot of bodies. Te work in the
channel is very hard especially in the area around Dover where they are increasingly having to pick up more distressed people from overcrowded and unseaworthy boats.”
with the crew of the Dart Lifeboat was stuck “I
His quest for adventure was met in an un- forgettable two-hour trip in a Typhoon jet. “I was allowed to fly it for some of the time, take it supersonic and do all that fun stuff,” he enthused. “It was just an amazing experience. I’ve been very lucky, I’ve flown in all sorts of things – Harriers, various helicopters and Tornadoes. I’m not a trained pilot but they nearly always let me take the con- trols because you have to understand about what it’s like for aircrew in terms of
G-Forces and lack of oxygen.” A slightly more hair-raising experience occurred
while Dr Mozumder was carrying out search and rescue training in the Falklands in 1995. “I was stuck 40-feet below a Sea King helicopter on a seized winch cable when the outside temperature was below freez- ing and noticed 10 feet below me two very larger killer whales eyeing me up!” he exclaimed. Towards the end of his RAF career Dr Mozumder
was appointed Commander of Defence Primary Medi- cine, responsible for merging the RAF, Army and Navy medical services, which included all defence mental health services and rehabilitation aſter injury. “Making sure everyone got on and worked together
as a single unit was quite hard,” he laughed. “Tere was a lot of politics involved - I likened it to trying to join Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham together to make one football team! But 10 years on it’s still in place and still working.” One of Dr Mozumder’s proudest moments was re- ceiving the CB from Prince Charles at Buckingham
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