HALIFAX - Canada's chief of defence staff says he plans to stop using the term "non-life threatening injuries'' to refer to soldiers who survive attacks but are left with severe and often debilitating conditions.
Gen. Rick Hillier was asked about the term following a speech in Halifax on Thursday by an audience member who argued the phrase is misleading.
Hillier said he doesn't want the public to underestimate the severity of injuries suffered by soldiers serving in places like Afghanistan, which often require months or years of recovery and forever change their lives.
"That's probably a term that I won't use again, because non-life threatening in this day and age can be very severe injuries,'' Hillier said during the question-and-answer session.
"I don't want to convey the wrong message here. Non-life threatening is because of the incredible skill sets in the medical world that keep them alive when otherwise they would have died.''
Hillier pointed to Cpl. Shaun Fevens, who attended Thursday's speech. The 25-year-old reservist was seriously injured in a May 2006 roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan that left six other soldiers dead and injured another.
Fevens suffered a broken ankle and leg, burns, and shrapnel wounds in his wrist during the Easter Sunday attack. He was in a wheelchair as he recovered in Halifax, and he is still receiving treatment full-time.
When news of the attack reached Canada, the Defence Department referred to Fevens' injuries in a news release simply as "serious but non-life threatening.''
The young reservist with the Halifax-based Princess Louise Fusiliers acknowledged that the phrase doesn't leave the public with a full picture of what's happening in Afghanistan.
"In medical terms I understand it -- they were non-life threatening -- but it does dim down what my injuries actually were,'' Fevens said following Hillier's speech.
"They were serious ... and I understand for the public it's not very informative when you say `non-life threatening' because there's a lot of non-life-threatening injuries.''
Fevens, who plans to join the air force when he's finished his recovery, said it might be a good idea to stop using the term when talking to the public.
A Defence Department spokesperson wasn't available to explain why the military uses the phrase or whether the department would reconsider its policies.
Meanwhile, Fevens said his recovery is progressing.
"It's a medical thing, so nobody will give me a specific end date, so we don't really know, we're just going with however long it's going to take at this point,'' he said.
"It looks like everything's going to be great. I should be back to normal eventually, and we'll be keeping on trucking.''
