Never Broken

My journey from the horrors of Iraq to the birth of my miracle baby

"I was screaming for my life, buried alive under tonnes of rubble in a sweltering coffin of dust after a mortar attack. If I wanted to get out of this, I just knew I had to scream and scream."

When Corporal Hannah Campbell was hit by a mortar attack in Basra, Iraq, she was engulfed by debris. But, armed with an overwhelming love for her daughter and a survival instinct like no other, she lived to tell the tale. This is a story of courage, hope, and determination and a journey from the horrors of war to a miracle birth. When a bomb blast buried Corporal Hannah Campbell alive while she was serving in Iraq it was the start of an incredible journey of self-discovery. From the collapse of her marriage, to suffering horrific post-traumatic stress disorder, becoming morbidly obese, addicted to prescription drugs and suicidal, she went to hell and back. Hannah, who left her toddler at home to go to war, then made the extraordinary decision to amputate her own badly damaged leg so she could learn to live again and be a mom to her four-year-old daughter Milly. Within hours of waking up from the amputation she announced she would fulfill her dream of running the London Marathon even though at that time she was unable to walk. Just two months later she put on her first of many prosthetic legs and crossed the finishing line, running into the arms of her beloved young daughter. This spurred her to lose half her body weight before spending her army compensation on a £52,000 cosmetic makeover which led her to find love again. In an amazing transformation of fortune, she became pregnant with miracle baby Lexi-River, astounding her doctors as this was a child she was told her she’d never have due to her blast injuries. Hannah’s story is one of true heroism and triumph over seemingly insurmountable adversity. But simply it’s also a story about how a mother’s love for her children can conquer all.