Titanium 33 before the attack
On 31st January 2010, Trooper Corie Mapp of The Life Guards was driving his armoured vehicle on combat operations in Afghanistan when it ran over an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). The explosion that followed caused him massive injuries. But this was not the end of his active life but rather the beginning. Black Ice.
Born in Bridgetown, Barbados, in 1978, Corie left school at the age of sixteen, without any qualifications, and in 1999 joined the Barbados Defence Force Reserves, leaving in 2001 to work with the Royal Barbados Police Force. But he already had a bigger ambition: to serve in the British Army. In 2005, he left his wife in the care of his family in Barbados and travelled to England in pursuit of this goal, the achievement of which came in a Derby recruiting office. Whilst undergoing basic training, Corie was assigned to The Life Guards, Britain’s premier regiment and part of the elite Household Cavalry that has the dual role of guarding The Queen and serving on the front line.
Titanium 33 after 31st January 2010
Unbeknownst to Corie, his first task after basic training would not be to learn how to operate an armoured car, but to undergo three months of riding instruction before starting ceremonial duties with The Life Guards Squadron of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment in London. Corie was horrified, never having sat on a horse before, but nonetheless buckled down to the task and spent a happy two years mounting guard at Whitehall and riding on royal Escorts and Trooping the Colour. He is, to date, the only black Barbadian to have served in the Household Cavalry or to have ridden on Trooping the Colour. Then, in 2008, he was posted to the Household Cavalry’s armoured regiment in Windsor and was soon on exercise in Canada in the same Squadron as Prince Harry (now The Duke of Sussex). This was followed, in September 2009, by his first tour of duty in Afghanistan where, on 31st January 2010, the armoured car that he was driving ran over a concealed IED.
Corie the World Cup champion of 2018
The next thing Corie remembers was waking in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Selly Oak, Birmingham, not realising that he was a double amputee. Two months after losing his legs, and having made an almost miraculous against-the-odds recovery, Corie was back with his regiment in Windsor, was promoted to Lance Corporal and continued to serve with the regiment until 2013 whilst also undergoing periodic rehabilitation on his new prosthetic legs at the Defence Rehabilitation Centre, Hedley Court.
During his time there, Corie became a skilful sitting volleyball player, joining the GB team and competing at the 2014 Invictus Games. However, when he was offered the chance to bobsleigh, his horizons widened considerably. After just one year of training, in 2014 Corie won gold in the inaugural Para Bobsleigh World Cup competition in St Moritz, was second overall in the World Cup 2014/15 season and became the overall World Cup champion in 2018. On the international bobsleigh circuit he is affectionately known ‘black ice’.
Whilst Corie continues to compete in para bobsleigh, he joined the Wilshire Police in 2020 as, initially, a PCSO. Corie’s motto is: ‘don’t exist, live!’, a life affirming philosophy that he is pursuing successfully both for himself and as an icon for others disadvantaged by race, colour or disability. As Corie says: ‘If this book convinces just one black Barbadian kid with no qualifications to follow their dream, no matter the obstacles, then I will have succeeded.’
Black Ice tells Corie’s story in his own words in conversation with former Life Guard, author and military historian, Christopher Joll. It was written during lockdown and without either author ever meeting.
