Why You Want To Avoid Getting Blown Up By A Landmine: From ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ By Nate Thayer

What Happens When Your Ride Disintigrates After Being Blown Up by Anti-Tank Landmines

By Nate Thayer

These photos were taken of the truck I was riding in after it drove over two Chinese anti-tank mines, in northwest Cambodia, in October 1989.

I was sitting in the front seat of Russian Zil 2 1/2 ton military transport truck which the Cambodian guerrilla group I was traveling with had captured hours earlier after seizing a strategic government town. Most people in the truck were killed, including both of the soldiers sitting with me in the drivers compartment, one on either side of me.

The truck I was riding in after the left front tire, which was less than 5 feet from where I was sitting, detonated two anti-tank mines in the jungles near the Thai Cambodian border

I woke up in the remnants of the engine compartment with a severed leg across my face. It wasn’t mine.

Nate Thayer: periodismo, crowdfunding y autopromo

• A much appreciated note of support from the Spanish language journalists website Globorama.es for my efforts to fund the publication of my my book “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist’s Memoir From Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge” http://www.globograma.es/nate-thayer-periodismo-crowdfunding-y-autopromo/