Lisa Johnston: The Amputee Army Medic Who Co-Piloted a British Diesel Record at Coniston

Lisa Johnston served 17 years as an Army combat medic, lost her left leg above the knee in 2016, and ended Coniston Power Boat Record Week on Friday 6 November with her name on a British national record.

She was co-pilot to Aaron Hilton in Team Endeavour Racing UK’s Aquarius ProCat, which ran the Amaroq 40 diesel outboard to 44.81mph in the Offshore Circuit Experimental Pro-Cat Diesel class. The speed is on the organisers’ final record sheet and is subject to ratification.

ITV News filmed the crew at Coniston, and Johnston talked about the years before the amputation.

“Monster mummy”

Johnston joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 2001 as a combat medical technician and served in Germany, the Falkland Islands, Egypt, Iraq and Kuwait.

A training injury in 2014 led to complex regional pain syndrome, CRPS. ITV News reported that she had hurt her ankle on an obstacle course.

Two and a half years of pain followed. She had three young sons, and she said they would not come near her.

Johnston told ITV News:

They called me monster mummy because I was in so much pain.

She added:

It was heartbreaking and there’s a lot of guilt that I still carry.

Her left leg was amputated above the knee in June 2016. She said:

So once the leg came off, my life just improved 100%.

Invictus gold and a seat on the Blesma board

At the Invictus Games in The Hague in April 2022 she won gold in the shot put for Team UK.

Blesma, the charity for limbless veterans, credits her with three gold medals and a backstroke record at the Warrior Games. She has been a Blesma trustee since 30 June 2024.

The Blesma name is on the Team Endeavour boat. The charity reported in March 2016 that a £10,000 grant from it had helped equip the team with its first two boats.

What the co-pilot does

A ProCat carries two people, and the co-pilot’s weight is part of how it is driven. Johnston starts a run right at the front of the boat. Once it has levelled out she slides as far back as she can and gets as low as she can.

She told ITV News that having one leg is an advantage, because it does not get in the way. On a straight she leans forward and her stump stops her falling out.

She said:

I just feel like I’m flying. That is my happy place.

She is an optimist about the rest of it too. Being an amputee gets her to the front of the queue at theme parks, she said, which her children love.

The team

Team Endeavour Racing UK is a community interest company based in Gosport, Hampshire, for wounded, injured and sick serving personnel and veterans. The original company was formed in October 2014 and the team first raced ThunderCats in 2015.

Hilton, its driver and quartermaster, joined in 2018, a year after his medical discharge from the Army, ITV News reported. He said the team got him back into work and “off the drink”.

Hilton told ITV News:

Put my helmet on and the voices in my head shut up.

Director David Taylor told ITV News that one of the team’s boats is modified for amputees. All At Sea has reported that two members, David Gardiner and Mark Sidwell, were the first and fastest amputee crew to complete the UKOPRA Round the Island race in it. Portsmouth News described Gardiner as a single amputee and Sidwell as a double amputee.

Taylor said of that race:

There was only one leg in that boat.

The team describes the run as a world record. Powerboat News has not found a ratifying body for it.

Johnston and Hilton’s 44.81mph at Coniston was up from the 44.32mph the organisers announced on the Wednesday.