A SCOTTISH nurse who saved the life of a three-year-old Palestinian girl who had a bullet lodged in her neck after it ricocheted through her mother’s body recalls the horrors he saw in Gaza.
David Anderson, a Montrose-born medic, spent six months in 2024 in the Gaza war zone helping to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid to the territory.
Anderson is the Disaster and Conflict Lead for Manchester-based frontline charity UK-Med and said that during his time in the region he saw many “difficult” and “dramatic” injuries.
He recalled treating one child, Razan, who had to have a 7.92mm bullet removed from her neck after it ricocheted through her mother’s body.
The three-year-old is now making a full recovery. Anderson said it is a miracle she survived as the bullet was lodged just millimetres from her spinal cord.
“You see so many difficult or dramatic injuries – arms, legs, multiple amputations, quite a lot of cases where bullets have ripped through the abdomen,” he said.
“We treated a three-year-old girl with a bullet in her neck. The bullet had passed through the family’s makeshift tent, passed transversely through the mum’s hip and then breast before lodging itself in the neck of the child.
“It’s quite frankly a miracle they survived, and the bullet was lodged just millimetres from the little girl’s spinal cord.
“It took three hours of surgery to remove the bullet. It was only because it had gone through mum twice that the velocity had slowed sufficiently not to cause more serious damage to the child.”
Anderson added: “The family’s story was heart-breaking. They’d fled northern Gaza when their apartment was hit by an airstrike at the beginning of the war.
“They had to step over dead bodies as they made their way south and had been displaced three times by the time they finally reached Al Mawasi. They thought they had found safety… but they were wrong.”
The 55-year-old has previously responded to various humanitarian crises, including Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine and the world’s worst Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone in 2014.
Anderson played a key role in helping establish two Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) funded emergency field hospitals – based in Al Mawasi and Deir El Balah.
UK-Med received £5.5million from the UK Government last year to help fund their life-saving work in Gaza until April.
He spoke about how the constant sound of bomb blasts almost felt like “background noise” as he had to work through countless Israeli airstrikes.
Anderson explained not all Palestinian casualties like Razan were so lucky to survive.
“After an explosion, you have quite a lot of bystanders come in with lots of different body parts they’ve gathered up that have been blown off. I think they think we might be able to re-attach them but all you can really do is take them and hope there is some way to identify the person so they can have a dignified burial.
“I think the most difficult cases are where a child dies. I remember a seven-year-old kid with three big bullets that had ripped through their chest and gone straight out her back. An uncle carried her in distraught but I would have defied the best trauma surgeon in the world to have saved them.
“All we could do was make her as presentable as possible, get the extruded lungs off of them, and clean her up so the family could at least hold a hand that isn’t covered in blood and add to the horror for them. Every day is horror in Gaza right now.”
The medic said UK-Med was able to treat more than 350,000 patients and save countless lives adding that before they arrived there were people having “traumatic amputations” on kitchen tables.
On Wednesday Israel and Hamas agreed a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage release deal following 15 months of war.
The agreement is due to take effect on Sunday as Anderson (below) said that the ceasefire is a “hugely significant step” towards relief for all those affected.
He added: “The people of Gaza have faced 15 months of continuous bombardment, leaving countless civilians displaced, millions in need of aid, and an already fragile healthcare system in shambles.
“UK-Med continues to work tirelessly, providing emergency medical services and training local healthcare providers.
“I saw first-hand the transformative work of our field hospitals in giving life-saving care, quite literally saving lives and limbs.
“The scale of need remains staggering; my sincere hope is that the humanitarian response addresses the immense and ongoing challenges for the people.”
