Stephen Frantham was working as a de-miner in South Sudan for the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) when he trod on a mine, shearing off his foot and ankle.
He recalls little blood or pain from the incident and only remembers binding his leg with shirts before his colleagues raced along the bumpy roads to Juba, reaching the Bangladeshi military hospital there within an hour. The medical attention he received helped save his life. Many South Sudanese locals have not been so lucky.
Within five months, Stephen was back to continue the United Nations vital de-mining efforts with his new prosthetic leg. It was his desire to make an impact that drove him back to South Sudan.
Every mine that comes out of the ground, that's perhaps someone's life saved, he said. That's something real. Something tangible.
Tangible is exactly the right word, and with the help of Stephen and other committed United Nations staff, the Organization has cleared more than 27,000 mines and 890,000 explosive remnants of war (ERW), saving lives and opening 43,000 km of road and 64 million square feet of land that was previously unusable.