A regional daily reporter on a visit to Afghanistan had a lucky escape after the vehicle he was traveling in narrowly avoided a roadside bomb.

John Scott, from the Express & Star, visited Afghanistan as servicemen and women from the West Midlands prepare to leave the war-torn country.

In the first of a week-long series of reports, he described how he witnessed the aftermath of a roadside blast which hit a vehicle two kilometres down the road and how only a delay in his patrol setting off prevented them from being the victims.

John was travelling in a Foxhound armoured car with members of the 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment (3Mercian) near Gereshk in Helmand Province when they witnessed the blast ahead.

He said that a Danish army vehicle had been destroyed by an improvised explosive device when a parked motorcycle taxi packed with explosives blew up, injuring the three Danish soldiers on board.

John wrote: “The latest blast was so strong it blew the 24-ton Cougar into a field wounding three men, one seriously. The right hand side of the vehicle was caved in but fortunately it had remained on its wheels preventing further injury to those inside if it had rolled over.

“Pieces of black twisted metal – all that remained of the motorcycle taxi – littered the road and hard packed sand.

“Only luck had prevented the Foxhound in which I sat from becoming a target for the bomber after our patrol was delayed for an hour by a last minute hitch over air cover.

“Otherwise we would have passed the lair where the insurgents waited to trigger the deadly car bomb before the Cougar.

“Our four-vehicle patrol had intended to visit check points and a patrol base manned by the Afghan Army but that plan was abandoned as we went to help the wounded soldiers.

“The 3Mercian troops were the first military personnel to reach the scene, arriving minutes after the IED strike.”

He added that his team helped to rescue the casualties of the blast, one of whom could not feel his legs, and they were airlifted to hospital.

The soldiers on the ground then investigated the bombing while Apache pilots overhead looked out for any groups of men who could be preparing to fire on those looking into the IED strike.

John spent 10 hours at the scene with the troops while the Cougar vehicle was recovered and was told by Major Andy MacLanahan that if their patrol had started on time, it could have easily been his vehicle hit by the IED.

Following the blast, a suspect was detained by troops in connection with the explosion and the three injured soldiers were expected to make good recoveries.