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Bobsleigh team driver shrugs off tragedy

29/ 1/2002

A MIDDLETON soldier has pledged to carry on as a member of a British Army bobsleigh team after a second tragedy hit the team.

Stuart Murphy, whose father, Alex, still lives in Middleton, learned of the incident when his father rang him in Cyprus where he is currently stationed.

The accident, in which Lieutenant Kevin Taaffe received severe head and facial injuries, happened at the Austrian ski resort of Igls.

Lt Taaffe lost a lot of the skin off his face and suffered a broken leg when his helmet came off after he crashed on a bend.

The 25-year-old, from the Royal Regiment of Wales, was left pinned between the track and the sleigh as it careered down the bends.

It is the second tragedy to hit the team in less than a year. In February last year Corporal Derek Osborne, another team member and a friend of Stuart's, died after a disturbance at a disco in Innsbruck, Austria.

Stuart's father, Alex Murphy, said his son had not done any bobsleighing for a while because of the military operation in Afghanistan, so he did not know Lt Taaffe, but had been very sorry to hear of the accident.

"He wasn't aware of what had happened but it's not put him off at all. I knew it wouldn't. He said people were more likely to get injured playing rugby or football than bobsleighing.

"He knows the danger in bobsleighing and there would be no fun for him if there was no element of danger. He started as brake man and it wasn't enough excitement for him so he graduated to driving."

The 21-year-old former Queen Elizabeth School pupil joined the army after leaving school and is a private with the King's Own Royal Border Regiment, based in Catterick, North Yorkshire.

He volunteered to join the bobsleigh team in 1999 after returning from a posting in Macedonia, and has performed with the four-man team across Europe.