Always ready to act on a call out, teams from the Counter Improvised Explosive Device (C-IED) Task Force are prepped and ready to respond to any IED finds or explosions wherever UK troops are operating in Helmand.

Sapper Chris Baitey from Houghton-le-Spring in Newcastle is one of the brave men constantly waiting for the call out or ’10 liner’ as they’re known. At just 22, this is his second tour of Afghanistan.

The call comes. He and his team are straight out and onto the helipad. A helicopter swoops in, they board and within minutes they are en route to Nahre Saraj district. An improvised explosive device (IED) has struck a British vehicle.

They’re told no one has been injured, but the team is stuck. It’s believed secondary devices litter the area. As the minutes go by, the stranded team are at risk of being targeted by insurgents.

To get the vehicle crew extracted Sapper Baitey and his team must conduct a painstaking search of the area and create a ‘safe lane’. Carrying up to 50 kg of equipment, in the sweltering Afghan heat it is no easy task.

Sapper Baitey and men and women like him serving with the Counter IED Task Force are the only ones trained to seek out and dispose of the deadly devices. Highly trained, specialist Royal Engineers and members of the Royal Corps of Logistics, they are at the top of their game – it takes them months to become qualified.

Using the latest bomb detecting equipment Sapper Bailey and his team cleared a path to allow a Bomb Disposal Operator to close in on the devices. The trapped crew were recovered once Sapper Baitey and his team had checked the area around the vehicle and methodically cleared the path of secondary devices.