Medic returns from Camp Bastion to meet granddaughter
A paediatric nurse who has been serving in a hospital in Afghanistan has returned home to meet her granddaughter for the first time.
Captain Celia Hill is one of 50 NHS workers who spent nearly four months treating injured soldiers and civilians in the trauma hospital at Camp Bastion.
The 54-year-old usually works at Warrington Hospital's accident and emergency department.
She returned to Liverpool on Monday to meet her second granddaughter Anna.
Capt Hill and the medics travelled to Helmand Province last year as part of the 208 Field Hospital (Volunteers).
They returned to the hospital headquarters in Childwall on Monday afternoon, where they were greeted by their family and friends.
Capt Hill said when she decided to join the team she was unaware her son's girlfriend was expecting her second child.
She said seeing the new addition, who is now 12 weeks old, for the first time was "absolutely fantastic".
She said: "I saw them out in the crowd there when the bus came round the corner, I didn't know whether they would make it and I spotted the little pinky top and I started crying, it was lovely to see them."
She said she had enjoyed the past few months in Afghanistan but was glad to be home.
She added: "I've been working hard, it's been a really good experience, it was just fantastic and everyone really seemed to enjoy being there.
"You pick up and see things that you would never see in the UK trauma centres, well not in the centre I work in anyway."
While at Camp Bastion she was working with children injured in the conflict.
She said: "You see them coming in very quiet and very sullen, the environment is obviously very alien to them as they are usually at home with their families.
"It's nice to see their smiley faces when they get to go back home."
The British military hospital is staffed by Territorial Army medics and is one of 11 field hospitals in the British Army.