British racer runs to overcome odds, disability
By Dan Morrison

Chris Moon

Pretty strong words, especially in the context of a 150-mile race through the desert. But 34-year-old Chris Moon of London seemed sincere when he made that personal declaration the evening prior to the 50-mile stage of the Marathon des Sables. By then a handful of competitors had already quit the race, and by the end of the event nearly two dozen runners would miss seeing the finish line.

Chris Moon finished the race with a cumulative time of 47 hours, 46 minutes, and 30 seconds — 29 hours ahead of the last man to finish the race. Pretty good, when you consider that most people told Moon it was simply impossible for him to finish a race like the Marathon des Sables, let alone finish in less time than 55 other runners.

"They did tell me it would be impossible to do this. Everyone said, 'You cannot go 50 miles on a prosthesis.'"

Chris Moon has no right leg and no right hand.

After serving time in the military, Moon worked for a bit in the private sector. But boredom set in, and Moon decided to do something about it.

"When I left the Army I was in my late 20s and I wanted a challenge," Moon says with his omnipresent grin. "I specifically decided I wanted to clear mines. It was using military skills for humanitarian purposes. I found it very rewarding. I have a very firm belief in God and to me it seemed like the right thing to do."

So Moon went to work for the HALO (Hazardous Area Life-support Organization) Trust, an organization founded by Colin Mitchell, a former colonel and, after retirement from the military, a conservative MP in the British government. It was the late Mitchell's vision to begin the herculean and perhaps promethian task of clearing the world of land mines. No small job.

Numbers are difficult to pin down, but according to best estimates, there are about 110 million anti-personnel land mines left buried in 64 different countries. As a rule, armies never bother to remove mines once military conflicts are over, and, as Moon notes sadly, "Mines go on killing people for decades after the conflict is over."

After working for two years clearing mines in Cambodia, one of the most severely affected countries, Moon was sent by HALO to Mozambique.

"It was basically a training operation. We were teaching local soldiers, or those recently demobilized."

According to Moon, the general "acceptable casualty rate" when clearing mines is one accident for every 2,000 mines. HALO's record was much better.

"The accident rate in HALO is very, very low," Moon says with pride. "Seldom does an accident happen. But the bottom line is you are going to have a few. If you deal with something designed to maim or kill, unfortunately someday it will do just that."

Moon's group had cleared 20,000 mines before a Portuguese 969 anti-personnel mine did what it was designed to do — blow off Moon's right leg and right hand.

"It was 7 March, 1995," Moon recalls. "I was walking in a cleared area in a very remote province [in Mozambique]. I heard a very loud bang. And I was blown up. I looked down and I saw that my right hand was very badly damaged. I was blown over and lying face down. I felt absolutely no pain. I looked down — lower leg blown off. There was just nothing left. It was completely blown to bits."

Body armor and safety glasses saved Moon's life and sight, and a couple other important bodily functions.

"I said a prayer," Moon says seriously, "I said, 'Look God, forgive me for all the bad things I've done, I don't have time to mention them all right now.'"

Then a sly smile crosses Moon's face as he continues describing the incident. "Shortly after that I did the internal boxer shorts inspection, and then gave thanks to the Almighty. I found everything was relatively intact. I was delighted."

Delighted, but very near death. With military precision Moon got on his radio and reported the situation. "I am a casualty. Lower right leg blown off and very badly damaged. Get on to the helicopter and see if it will do a cas-evac to the hospital. Send a stretcher, a medic, and that's all. No one else."

Then he crawled to a safe area to be picked up.

Picked up by an American helicopter that was fortuitously in the area, Moon was transported first to the local hospital. "I asked them not to give me morphine, because I wanted to keep my wits about me. After about a minute and a half I have to admit it was quite uncomfortable."

The local hospital had no blood supply and no morphine. Flown to Johannesburg that evening, the surgeons who attended Moon were surprised to find him still alive. "The reason I was still alive," Moon says, "was because I had done a lot of long-distance running."

And he is still running, even after seven operations and the surgical removal of his destroyed right hand and right leg, and despite prognosis of a legion of doctors.

"The first marathon I did was exactly a year after I was blown up," Moon says with a bit of a chuckle.

Unable to continue his work with HALO, Moon set up his own company, MTB Management, which raises funds for mine victims. To the surprise of many, Moon does not consider himself among those he helps.

"In no way do I consider myself to be a victim, because I chose to be there. We all have to be responsible for our decisions in life. I have absolutely no regrets. I wanted something challenging in a totally different culture and environment. I was doing something that I felt made a difference, that was basically a humanitarian service and definitely worthwhile."

Now Moon is doing something equally worthwhile. Last year he ran a marathon in Phnom Penh to raise funds for local victims of mines. This year he ran the Marathon des Sables to raise funds for more mine victims in the same region.

To watch the double amputee finish a grueling trek across 50 miles of sand dunes — terrain never intended for most humans and certainly not someone wearing a prosthesis — is a humbling experience. To Moon the mountains of sand in 125-degree heat seem a bit of an annoyance, but not much more.

"I'm doing okay," he said early on in the race. "I've got a couple of sores on my stump, and my left foot is covered with blisters."

But Moon has a mission. "I've got a lot of charity work to do. There's a lot of people who have no voice and no hope."

On the seventh day, when Chris Moon strode across the final finish line, grinning from ear to ear, arm in arm with fellow British runners, it surprised many of those gathered to watch. Moon, of course, knew he would finish.

Because, as he notes, "Failure is not an option."

Dan Morrison is a freelance writer-photographer based in Austin, Texas.