How I Rebuilt After Losing Three Limbs: Army Veteran Josh Boggi (E438)
episodePreviously titled “How I Rebuilt After Losing Three Limbs: Army Veteran Josh Boggi (E437)” — renamed by the publisher on Sep 18, 2026
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How did the IED explosion in Afghanistan change Josh’s life in an instant?
New Year's Eve 2010, we were getting ready to go out on a dawn patrol. Threatening Afghanistan at that point had gone more from sort of conventional war fighting. You shoot us, we shoot back. To IEDs, guerrilla tactics, putting stuff in the ground. Step to my right. Boom. Boom. My world was literally ripped out from underneath me. Next thing I know, I'm in mid-air, everything slows down, and then you land with a thud, and it's like, I can't breathe, ears are ringing, dust in your eyes. I didn't realise it was me that had been injured. I woke up in Birmingham a week later. Yes, this has happened, but I'm not going to let that define me.
Well, Josh, welcome to High Performance. Thank you for having me. Good to meet you both. And you. So let's rewind the clock if we can, which I'm sure in your head you've done many, many times over the years. New Year's Eve 2010, you're 10 days into a delayed deployment and this is six weeks after the birth of your son.
10 days after he was born, I was back in Afghanistan on my third tour. Yeah, New Year's Eve 2010, we were getting ready to go out on a dawn patrol. Our job was to support the Irish Guards. We'd sort of plan to walk, say, a mile down the road, take over a compound, leave some guardsmen in there so they could fight the Taliban, keep them occupied, so the local village as such could just get on with its daily life. I remember the morning of, sort of, you're all going through your drills, putting helmets on, magazines or weapons cocking, making sure everything's ready, checking each other over. and just going through those normal, mundane skills and drills that you've been taught from basic training to where you find yourself today.
Do you
remember it all? I can remember it vividly. I think it's because it's programmed into your mind, like I'm going to do this, this, this, and you've sort of got a routine for getting your own kit ready, et cetera. And then, yeah, the order comes over the radio. We're stepping off out the back gate. And my job at that point, we were as part of a Royal Engineers search team. So the threat in Afghanistan at that point had gone more from sort of conventional war fighting, you shoot us, we shoot back, to IEDs, guerrilla tactics, putting stuff in the ground. So... Or it would lead to you would be shot at and you would naturally want to find cover. So you would jump in a ditch, for instance, and there would be an IED in there.
So my job was just following the guy in front of me. And the guy at the front of the patrol, a guy called Lamming Manny, he had a metal detector. He was walking along about 10 minutes into the patrol. unfortunately he stepped on on an improvised explosive device i remember i can vividly remember the the dust cloud coming out the ground and instantly you knew what needs to happen my job then and our team's job was to clear a helicopter landing site because at that point in afghanistan you had something called the golden hour if you could get someone from point of injury to a hospital within an hour they had i think it was 94 95 chance of survival so that the the The calls are going back to Camp Bastion.
The medics are treated. We clear the helicopter landing site. The Chinook comes in. He gets thrown on the back. He's gone.
What was Josh’s first experience waking up in the Birmingham hospital after the blast?
We carry on. Our role
that day was clearing the compound. Is that not a complete mindset shift for you that you've just seen one of your good buddies and one of your comrades blown up and has gone on a helicopter?
We weren't... I mean, I knew him before, but we weren't good buddies. We became good buddies post-injury and recovering together, but... At the time, it's like, excuse my French, but shit, right. Shit, it's the fan. Guy's been injured. And you just kick into that, right, before going on a patrol, there'll be a set of orders coming through and action's on. I don't know, IED strike, injury. engineer section, you cleared the helicopter landing site. So instantly you kicked into, I need to do this to enable him to be back to Camp Bastion. And then once he's gone, that mind shift is, the mind shift shift was just, he's gone, right.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did the IED explosion in Afghanistan change Josh’s life in an instant?
0:03–3:09
2
What was Josh’s first experience waking up in the Birmingham hospital after the blast?
3:09–5:56
3
How did the five‑minute conversation with a fellow triple‑amputee give Josh a new roadmap for recovery?
5:56–8:38
4
What role did sport and the Invictus Games play in rebuilding Josh’s confidence and identity?
8:38–12:31
5
How did Josh overcome the mental and physical challenges of his hand‑cycle crash in Mallorca?
12:31–15:25
6
What lessons did Josh learn from his experiences with classification setbacks and competitive racing?
15:25–19:05
7
How is Josh now using his story to help other veterans and service personnel through sport and recovery programs?
19:05–22:06
8
What does ‘high performance’ mean to Josh now, beyond the military context?
22:06–1:07:07
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The High Performance Podcast
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Why You Attack Monday And Crumble By Friday
Dina Asher-Smith: Why Britain's Fastest Woman Feels Unaware of Her Achievements (E435)