AN ARMY captain from North Yorkshire has told of his “miraculous” survival after being shot in the chest by the Taliban during a firefight in Afghanistan.

Father-to-be David Wiseman described how a bullet went straight through his lung before lodging in his back, but passed between a major artery and nerve, missing them by a few millimetres.

“It would have been very much more serious if either had been hit,” said Capt Wiseman, 27, of Tadcaster.

He was serving in Helmand Province with the 2nd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment when he was wounded while out on patrol last month.

“It was miraculous really,” Capt Wiseman said. “My boys did very, very well. They provided protection until a chopper arrived within 15 minutes. I was on an operating table within 35 minutes to undergo emergency trauma surgery.”

Capt Wiseman, a former Tadcaster Grammar School pupil, was then flown back to England for further surgery at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham. Doctors decided it was safer to leave the bullet lodged inside him than try to remove it.

“I was in intensive care for two days and then spent a further two weeks in hospital,” he said. He was allowed to return to his family home in Tadcaster just over a week ago to begin recuperating, and will be there over Christmas.

“A lot of soldiers being treated at Selly Oak are recovering much more quickly than doctors would normally expect, because they are such fit young men.”

He said his prognosis was good, and he fully intended to return to active duty when his recovery was complete.

“They are expecting a very good recovery. I am actually very fortunate compared to what many other soldiers have gone through.”

Capt Wiseman said he had joined the army in 2006 and had been two months into a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan when he was injured on November 15.

He said he had been working alongside Afghan soldiers and had been in command of nine British soldiers and a company of Afghans out on a daily patrol when they were engaged by PKM machine guns and several AK automatic rifles and he was hit in the chest.

Such firefights were a daily occurrence, and it was inevitable that soldiers would sometimes be wounded in such circumstances. His wife Lucy, who is expecting their first child next year, wanted to stress how well the army had looked after her family's welfare throughout his stay in hospital and beyond.

“She was on the first plane possible from our home in Germany to be at Birmingham when I arrived there,” he said.

“Lucy and the rest of my family were accommodated locally for my entire stay and were very well looked after indeed.

“I’m just thinking about my team and their families over Christmas and wishing them all the best.”