NEW YORK — People come up to Aimee Mullins (pictured) all the time and say, “you know, I have to tell you, you just don’t look disabled.”

Aimee Mullins

The record-setting athlete, actress and model says, “And it’s sweet because I know that they’re confused, and they’re telling me this because they know I’m missing both legs from the shin down, but they’re presented with this package of a highly capable young woman. This has happened all over the world. I tell them it’s interesting because I don’t feel disabled.”
She believes that people are not born disabled. “It’s society that disables an individual by not investing in enough creativity to allow for someone to show us the quality that makes them rare and valuable and capable.”
Mullins was born without fibula bones and was expected to use a wheelchair to get around. Her legs were amputated below the knees when she was a year old. She learned to walk, bike, swim and play sports using prosthetics.
While a student at Georgetown University, she competed in the NCAA Division I, using pioneering carbon-fiber prosthetic devices designed to imitate the hind legs of a cheetah. At the Paralympics in 1996, she set world records in several track events, drawing attention that landed her on magazine covers and in one media “best of” list after another.
Mullins was featured in a 1999 show by the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen and has gone on to a career as an actress. In an interview with CNN.com, she said she’s beginning work on a screenplay about the life of scientist Rosalind Franklin, whose discoveries helped lead to the unlocking of the structure of DNA.
In a talk at last year’s TED MED conference in San Diego, Mullins explored the concept of disability and talked about how overcoming adversity is something everyone must confront, in one way or another.
Mullins spoke to CNN March 8. Here’s an edited transcript:
CNN: You spoke at the TED MED conference about the negative connotations of the term “disabled.” How important is it that we get the language right?
Aimee Mullins: It’s not so much the word itself. The idea of being politically correct is not the goal here. It’s how we use the word very casually as a label to try to encompass somebody’s value to our community and the worth of their contribution to our community. That’s what we need to get right.
I’ve had so many letters from parents or medical professionals who will say, I didn’t even think about how casually I’ll tell someone oh, I have a disabled child. It never even occurred to them that if they really stop to think about it, their child may have a specific medical condition that can be defined as paralysis or autism or being an amputee. …it’s how we use words and how they shape what we think about difference and other people in our community.
CNN: In your own life, how significant have these kinds of words been?
Mullins: Well for me I never ever felt the ownership or any identity with any community of disabilities. I didn’t grow up being told that I was a disabled child. After the ’96 games, and I was competing in Division I track at Georgetown and I was starting to get mainstream press … where I’d be on the cover of a magazine that was heralding my speed and athletic prowess and it would say, “Disabled athlete Aimee Mullins runs faster than most people on the planet with flesh and bone legs.” And I thought how does a journalist miss that, and just casually write “disabled athlete.”
I’ve had journalists asking me what do we call you — is it handicapped , are you disabled, physically challenged? I said well hopefully you could just call me Aimee. But if you have to describe it, I’m a bilateral below the knee amputee.
Ten years later, watching Oscar Pistorius go through many of the same issues I had 10-12 years ago, I realized that our language just hasn’t caught up with the opportunities technology is providing for people…
I feel like today there’s a different sense, so much more widespread, of people feeling like they don’t want to be negated, they don’t want to be marginalized, they want to make their own definitions of their identity. They want to identify themselves.
CNN: You have said that there’s a stigma relating to differences between people. Do you think, just setting the word aside, is there still a stigma relating to physical limitations such as being an amputee?
Mullins: There’s much, much less of a stigma here. It’s my own personal experience that parents of children today who are amputees have an entirely different view. I think a lot of this is because of the Internet. They have so much more access to information and to learn about what prosthetics are out there. And a sense of sheer numbers, to learn that you’re not alone. …
I’ve been in developing countries where being an amputee and indeed having any kind of physical or intellectual or emotional disability is highly stigmatized. I was in Kibera [in Nairobi, Kenya], one of the largest slums in the world, last fall, and mothers of babies born with club feet are encouraged to abandon these children. If the babies are born with Down Syndrome, they’re encouraged to abandon them.
If the mother doesn’t actually abandon the child, the child is kept in a backroom in a shack and literally does not see the light of day. And the child is not even counted. When I asked a mother how many children she had, she told me she had three, but there were four. I was sitting in their living room and her three year old had been born with his head enlarged and the rest of his body wasn’t developing at the same rate.
I had a really disturbing message from a doctor who was at TED MED and heard me speak and went to Haiti immediately after the earthquake — he’s an anesthesiologist. And he said, we have to talk because I have so many patients down here who are choosing death over amputation.
And so I’m sure that part of the social stigma in a developing country when employment and work are already scarce, it’s hard for people to imagine how they could support their family financially with a different body.
CNN: How does technology play into this and how is it changing the lives of amputees?
Mullins: Technology’s a huge factor. There had been a real dearth of technological advancement since the last world war. …
I grew up as a teenager having this wonderful naivete about, well I can go see something that James Cameron dreamt up and [Oscar-winning visual effects designer] Stan Winston built it. Why can’t I have that for my body? Or I would go into Madame Tussaud’s wax museum and see the kind of artistry was done there for a leg. Why can’t I combine that with Stan Winston’s doing?

It was a very lonely voice echoing in the wilderness… And I really think because of the two wars we are in right now and because of the fact that we have so many young men and women in this situation, it’s unthinkable that we’re willing to make a 19-year old irrelevant by not giving them their capabilities. And that’s why you’re seeing so many leaps in progress.
Again with the growth of the Internet, so many more people are saying I found some designer in Silicon Valley who’s using a 3-D printer to create a model of a prosthetic leg and customize it and print it out. There is that sense of possibility that’s been so expanded because of technology and because so many more people have accepted this invitation to come into the conversation. I’ve had fashion designers, graphic designers, and communication designers, people who don’t have engineering backgrounds, who don’t have medical backgrounds, who are very intrigued by the idea of creating prosthetics for assistive devices…
The idea of prosthetics is a tool. Most people’s cell phones are prosthetics. If you leave your cell phone at home, you feel impacted by not having it. It’s an important part of your daily function and what you can do in a day.
CNN: How much of your own time do you devote to raising awareness about these issues?
Mullins: I’m not an advocate for disability issues. Human issues are what interest me. You can’t possibly speak for a diverse group of people. I don’t know what it’s like to be an arm amputee, or have even one flesh-and-bone leg, or to have cerebral palsy.
I don’t speak for such huge and diverse groups. What I’ve tried to do, what I’ve been fortunate to do, is to live my live and create my life as I’ve wanted to create it. To be able to live with such an autonomy has itself raised awareness.

(From Media dis&dat – March 2010)

LIBERTYVILLE — Having a prosthetic leg is not a disability, Mike Carzoli told about 125 fifth grade students Friday. He called it a “minor inconvenience” that doesn’t hold him back from anything — he can run, jump, play sports, go swimming and live the lifestyle he wants.

Libertyville Friday 12.02.11. Prosthetist Mike Carzoli talks to Butterfield School students about his experiences with a prosthesis on Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, at the school in Libertyville. Carzoli had his right leg amputated during a fight against cancer at the age of 18. | Buzz Orr~Sun-Times Media

Carzoli shared his personal story with students at Butterfield School as a tie-in to his wife’s class recent reading workshop. Carzoli’s wife, Mandy, teaches fifth grade at Butterfield and just finished a book with her class about a girl who was an amputee.

“I think (the presentation) sent a powerful message. Life is going to send you some trials and troubles. If you try, you can overcome them. I think that’s the important message,” Mandy said.

She said she tries to select books with good morals like “The Running Dream,” the book the class just finished reading. The book dealt with prosthetics and that is something she and her husband deal with every day, she said.

She invited her husband to speak. This was the first time Mike appeared at the school and addressed children.

Mike’s story encapsulated “all the things we talk about” like problem solving, said District 70 Superintendent Guy Schumacher.

He said he has known the Carzolis for several years. Schumacher used to be the building principal at Butterfield.

“He (Mike) has moved to another dimension of cool. It’s amazing that he’s here to spend time,” Schumacher said.

Mike lost his right leg (below the knee) to cancer in 1996 when he was 18. He said he went from being a healthy high school student to a cancer patient with few options.

He decided to go the amputation route and had a prosthetic leg later the same year of his surgery.

“Learning how to walk again was probably the most difficult thing to learn. I hope none of you go through that,” Mike told the students.

He learned to walk on his prosthetic leg, first using a walker, then a cane and then no additional support.

Mike went on to get a degree in math from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and had a successful career in the insurance field as an actuary. He and Mandy have been married for about eight years.

About two years ago, when his wife had their son, he decided to go back to school to design prosthetics.

He brought working prosthetic legs and an arm to show the students.

“I think it’s amazing that people can actually make legs,” said student Kylie Skie, 11.

She said it was an incredible experience to touch a real prosthetic leg.

Fellow student Makenna Rudolphi, 10, was also impressed with the presentation.

“It’s really cool because I was really interested when we read the book about it,” Rudolphi said.

My name is Ellie Hoskins, I am a third year documentary photography student studying at the University of Wales, Newport. For
my final year project I wanted to look into peoples life after injury and in particular their experience with using prosthetic
limbs. I am very interested in creating deeper awareness around people living with prosthetics and the support that they receive.
I have been working on this project for a few months and have created a set of images, however for the project to work I need to
have a range of people. I want to appeal to people would would be willing to be photographed to get in contact with me please.

In return I would be happy to give you full rights to the images. I really want to help to create awareness for the support given
to people living with prosthetics and I believe that with your help I can create a set of images that will help such a worthy cause.
I would be happy to discuss this further if you have any concerns.

I have previously worked with a charity that helps bereaved parents called SANDS and there are some examples of this project
and some of my other work on my website

http://www.elliehoskins.com/

Yours

Ellie Hoskins

Email: ellie_hoskins@hotmail.co.uk

Damain Lopez Alfonso is a talented cyclist who rides his bike with the handlebars 180 degrees upturned. He lost his forearms and was badly scarred after a terrible accident as a child in Cuba. As the New York Times reports, he has spent the past four months undergoing painful reconstructive operations and being fitted for prosthetic arms in New York. Alfonso can already ride his bike at speeds to beat almost all of us, but is having the surgery in order to cycle competitively in officially sanctioned international competitions, which have strict rules about using equipment. He’s to race in July in Canada, in the hopes of qualifying for the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.

Learning to ride with the new arm extensions has not been easy for 34-year-old Alfonso. He has been fitting with prosthetic arm extensions which consist of a “plastic cup connected to metal tubing and a hard-rubber claw-like ‘hand.’” The New York Times describes his first attempts to use these to ride in Central Park:

“I don’t like it,” [Alfonso] said. “I’ve ridden my whole life the other way, and now I can’t brake. I don’t know why I need this. Why do they have this stupid rule?”…

“Unfortunately, I don’t think the happy ending is going to come right away,” [John] Rheinstein [a prosthetics designer] said.

Indeed, learning to ride with the new arms will take time and training, as Mr. Alfonso adapts his highly developed riding style and gear. Despite state-of-the-art electronic shifters from Shimano, which allow him to change gears by lightly tapping a switch, using the prosthetics “will be hard,” he said.

Mr. Alfonso knows he needs to adapt if he is going to win medals, and eventually his competitive drive will take over, he said. “Because winning means always going forward,” he said. “Going forward, leading, always.” At 34, he quite likely has two shots left at the Paralympics, in 2012 and 2016.

Alfonso seems more than up to the challenge. I feel his frustration at not being able to compete by cycling in the way that he’s taught himself and can only note his determination still to succeed.

I’ve also long followed the story of Oscar Pistorius, a South African runner who races with prosthetic “blades”; he has been trying to qualify to run the 400 meters in the 2012 London Olympics, says the Wall Street Journal. As he says — words that more than inspire:

“I don’t want a lane because of my disability. I want to get a lane because of my performances.”

Bike riding has become an important activity and, indeed, sport for my teenage autistic son, Charlie. Just yesterday he rode in the Ride for Autism sponsored by AutismNJ, New Jersey’s largest autism advocacy organization. Bike riding might be a favorite activity for many a teenage boy, but it was an extra special challenge for my husband Jim Fisher to teach Charlie to ride once upon a time in a school parking lot. Charlie is on the moderate to severe end of the autism spectrum and, when he was younger, had some gross motor movement delays, plus he has trouble tracking moving objects. Now Charlie, always with Jim, rides 15 or so miles a day; at the Ride for Autism, they did ten, and then did two more rides at home.

In light of my son’s many struggles (some professionals have said he needed to be institutionalized, at least temporarily) for Charlie to be “out and about” on his bike, being seen excelling at something he loves to do, is a special form of witness — just as it is to see Alfonso riding his bike, and Pistorius running on his prosthetic blades.

Please follow the link to see videos of Damain Lopez Alfonso and Oscar Pistorius performing their sports: http://www.care2.com/causes/trailblazers/blog/damian-lopez-alfonso-oscar-pistorius-athletes-of-all-abilities-video/

Jen Clark recovering at home in Grangetown, Sunderland, after having both her legs amputated.

The 41-year-old, from Hollycarrside, first had to have her deformed feet amputated to overcome a deteriorating condition.

But after buying her first pair of shoes and learning to walk all over again, relentless pain meant Jennifer had to resign herself to life in a wheelchair or have her legs amputated below the knee.

The mum, married to David, 30, agreed to the op and is now recovering at home.

“I’m in a lot of pain, but I’m setting myself little targets every day,” she said. “My challenge for today was washing my hair, and I’ve done that.

“I’m hoping by tomorrow to get to Asda.”

Jennifer, whose children are aged from two to 17, is also hoping to take her family away for their first ever family holiday together later this summer.

“I’d love to go to Florida, but I’d settle for Legoland or Haggerston Castle,” she said. “We’ve never had a family holiday before – circumstances have just got in the way of things.”

Jennifer has only just got out of hospital, but said she is already going “stir crazy”.

The insurance worker is helping market her husband’s photography business – DC Photography in Up Market, Fawcett Street – online, and hopes to get back to work herself soon.

“I’m hoping to be working from home by the end of June, but I don’t know when I’ll actually get back to work properly – probably by Christmas time.”

Jennifer was born with congenital bilateral talipes, which meant her feet were shaped like horses’ hooves and she had to walk on her toes.

But when her feet started to crumble away in 2006, she took the decision to have them amputated and replaced with prosthetics rather than spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

She was able to buy her first pair of shoes – her actual feet had been too deformed to wear anything other than surgical boots.

Now Jennifer must go through it all again. If check-ups show the amputation has brought an end to the pain, she must wait until her wounds are healed and stitches removed before being fitted for protheses.

She said: “I’ll have a new centre of balance and I’ll have to learn to walk all over again.”

l Jennifer runs a website and also posts videos on YouTube to help others facing amputation. She also hopes to show others more fortunate the challenges facing people who have limbs removed. For details, visit http://theamputeediaries.blogspot.com.

By Ross Robertson
Published on Wednesday 1 June 2011 11:20

Sunderland Echo

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) May 26, 2011

Katy Sullivan, an actress and Paralympic runner ranked 5th in the world in her category, credits training she received through Landmark Education with helping her overcome mental obstacles to running on prosthetic legs.

Katy became the first person to compete internationally in track with above-knee prosthetics at the 2007 Para Pan Am Games in Brazil. She found inspiration to run, she says, in The Landmark Forum, a weekend seminar offered by Landmark Education, an international personal and professional growth, training and development company.

Landmark’s programs speak to and make a difference in what people are dealing with and what matters to them. The company specializes in helping people achieve breakthroughs to pursue their dreams. Katy, a 31-year-old Los Angeles resident, says attending Landmark Education courses gave her the confidence she needed to compete.

Katy was born without most of her legs and has used prosthetics most of her life. She can walk so well that, as an actress, she could hide the fact that she uses prosthetics, she says. But that isn’t possible when she runs.

“There is really no place to hide if you are going to commit to this,” she says. “One of the ways Landmark Education helped me was in getting to a new level of acceptance of who I am and living life from that place instead of trying to hide something that is part of me.”

A native of San Antonio, Texas, Katy grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A professional actress in television and theater, her acting jobs include appearing on My Name is Earl on NBC and shooting a pilot for a reality series based on her life with her husband, wheelchair-bound “standup” comedian Jay Cramer. She also works for Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics as a national advocate for people who have lost limbs.

Katy, who is seeking sponsorships for her running career as she sets her sights on competing in the Paralympic Games in London 2012, says that her newfound confidence is what has made it possible to boldly pursue her dreams.

“One of the many things I got out of Landmark Education was that by being completely authentic about who I am, people do look at me and appreciate me for the kind of person I am, not because they are noticing I have a disability,” she says.

Landmark Education is a personal and professional growth, training and development company that’s had more than 1.3 million people use its programs to cause breakthroughs in their personal lives as well as in their communities, generating more than 100,000 community projects around the world. In The Landmark Forum, Landmark’s flagship program, people cause breakthroughs in their performance, communication, relationships and overall satisfaction in life. For more information, please visit http://www.landmarkeducation.com.

Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/press-releases/11/05/p1116429/2012-paralympic-games-hopeful-says-landmark-education-helped-her-overc#ixzz1NZUSaSqL

John Tartaglio on his way to completing the New York Marathon

On Sunday, November 1st, after starting at 6 AM (just before the sun rose over the Verazanno Bridge), twenty-two-year-old John Tartaglio became the first complete double leg amputee to finish a marathon. John completed the 26.2 miles in 15 hours and 59 minutes, running on a custom designed carbon fiber running prosthesis built by A Step Ahead Prosthetics. John started hours before the elite runners and thousands of others and finished at Tavern on the Green in Central Park just before 10 pm while the other 42,000 runners had finished and were home resting their sore muscles. John was supported during the long day through the streets of New York by his parents, his coach Dave Balsley, P.T. and Amy Palmiero-Winters, director of Team A Step Ahead.

http://site.mawebcenters.com/astepaheadllc/newsletter_november_2009.html

(Thanks to Steve McNeice for sending us this article)

Comparing Scars

Comments (1)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
By Laura Bennett

Rob Kislow who says that without his prosthetics he would have “lost all the joys” in life

For Rob Kislow, getting shot was a kind of relief. He remembers a moment of otherworldly calm as the percussive roar of gunfire and the voices of soldiers dissolved into white noise. He blinked back blood. He saw his limbs flailing weirdly, as though they belonged to some other body. The firefight had lasted nine hours, and Kislow was deliriously tired. He’d seen his good friend killed, riddled with bullets. But as he was finally dragged away from battle, he kept firing until the insurgent who had shot him was dead. They were mere feet away from each other. “I saw his eyes,” Kislow recalls. Later, another American solider snapped a picture of the Afghan’s body and gave it to Kislow as a memento.

But the photograph is not Kislow’s only reminder of that day. His right leg is gone, severed cleanly below the knee. He had been shot four times. Once in his elbow, nearly shattering his forearm. Once in the top of his head, slicing off a chunk of scalp and a piece of skull. Twice in his right foot, exploding his ankle.

Rob Kislow — who left for Khost, Afghanistan at age 18, just months after his high school graduation — is now 23 years old, living with his parents in Bethlehem, Penn. Today, the only vestiges of his head wound are short-term memory loss and hearing problems, and, after 12 surgeries, his arm has been reconstructed. He chose to have his right leg amputated in 2006 because he couldn’t bear the pain. “I saw amputees playing sports, riding bikes, all with prosthetic legs. I thought, I want to do that. I got my leg amputated so I could have that freedom.”

Kislow is one of almost 800 veterans who have lost limbs after being injured in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. This number seems paltry in comparison with the scores of amputees who emerged from World War II, Korea and Vietnam; World War II alone saw 15,000 amputations. And due to new technology developed over the last few decades, the veteran amputee experience has changed drastically for the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. “These guys are coming back with traumatic injuries — they’ve lost limbs because of car bombings, IEDs, machine gunfire,” says Mary Lou Lauricella, a therapist at the West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital. “They just want to get on with their lives, and prosthetics are increasingly allowing them to do so.” While amputees of Korea and Vietnam were often forced to spend years in sedentary isolation, many of today’s veterans are active, impatient and pushing the boundaries of prosthetic technology.

The first time Rob Kislow had an artificial leg fitted, his doctors told him he wasn’t ready to use it. His stump needed more time to heal, they said. He smiled and nodded and waited for the physicians and nurses to leave. Then, he wheeled himself into the physical therapy room, grabbed his new leg and took it home.

His parents were not happy. His mother said: “Robert, you did not take that!” “Damn right I did,” he told her.

Then he took his first shower standing up since Afghanistan. He went archery hunting and drove his dirt bike. “I had the time of my life,” Kislow says.

Three years later, Kislow has already broken 14 prosthetic devices. One split in two while he was riding his motorcycle. One cracked and collapsed when he was carrying a buddy who had gotten hurt on a hiking trip. Another conked out after a day of snowboarding. A new prosthesis can cost between $6,000 and $12,000. Kislow currently has nine different prosthetic attachments — all paid for by the Department of Veterans Affairs — including devices for walking, running, motorcross, hunting, swimming and scuba diving. The artificial leg he uses to ride his bike is emblazoned with a slick silver skull on a black background. It has a hydraulic ankle joint that allows the foot to move naturally. His running leg is called a “Cheetah” — a blade made of carbon-fiber contoured to bend like a human ankle.

“Without all this technology, I would have nothing,” Kislow says. “If I had an old-school prosthetic, I’d have lost all the joys in my life.”

These “old-school prosthetics” were standard, sturdy models often made of wood or stainless steel and covered in flesh-like rubber. They were heavy, weighing 15 to 20 pounds. They bent crudely at the knee, and sometimes buckled spontaneously, causing the patient to fall.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — by creating a demand for high-tech, durable prosthetics — have pushed the field toward a series of new advancements.

Now, instead of wood and steel, prosthetics are made of lighter substances like carbon graphite, titanium, aluminum, silicon and different types of gel. The suspension system is also different: Prosthetics are attached to the body by suction or vacuum as opposed to buckles and straps. Today, myroelectric arms can use muscles to move motorized hands, elbows or shoulder joints. Scientists are moving toward transplanting nerves into prosthetics to allow patients to use the same neurological pathways they had used to manipulate natural limbs.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent almost $50 million on prosthetic devices and provided more than 4,000 new limbs to veterans.

Hanger Prosthetics, in Stratford, smells thickly of plaster and rubbing alcohol. Dr. Nathan Seversky strides purposefully down the hallway. His voice is clipped and businesslike.

“Let me see you walk,” he tells a man who has just been fitted with an artificial leg.

The patient staggers forward, arms outstretched.

“Good. She’s going to give you some nice thin socks,” Seversky says, gesturing to the nurse, “and if you need an adjustment, just let me know. See you in three weeks.”

Seversky became interested in prosthetics when he developed a bone infection in his ankle at age eight. His orthopedic surgeon showed him an array of prosthetic devices in preparation for his high-risk surgery. In the end, his ankle was fine, but Seversky was consumed by fascination with the rows of polished mechanical limbs.

The examination room at Hanger Prosthetics looks like a dance studio; it is paneled in mirrors so that Seversky can watch from all sides as patients learn to walk on their new limbs. One wall features colorful anatomy posters.

On the countertop is Seversky’s most prized possession — a wide computer screen with an attached sensor that looks like a barcode reader. Whereas sockets were once made by taking plaster impressions of a patient’s stump, computer technology is gradually digitizing this process.

The software — called Insignia — takes a surface scan accurate within two millimeters. After a patient has had one limb amputated, Seversky uses Insignia to scan the stump and then the other limb so that an impression can be made and a prosthesis created.

Seversky scans his own arm to demonstrate. He presses a small plastic sensor into the palm of his hand, then lifts the scanner and glides it up and down his forearm. Within seconds, a three-dimensional model of his arm materializes on the computer screen, first a delicate blue latticework and then an overlay of flesh-colored pixilation. The sensor sees every crevice and fold. It knows the bend of the elbow, the slope of the wrist.

But the workshop in the back of Hanger Prosthetics is still a testament to the crude corporeality of the business. There are two big ovens in which prosthetic limbs ossify in molds, plaster-dusted countertops scattered with screws and bolts, whirring bandsaws for grinding plastic, a wooden stand with artificial legs protruding like tree branches in all directions. There are big, husky legs and thin, knobby ones, slender female ankles and a man’s broad thigh. The floor is littered with various types of prosthetic devices: A skiing knee that has a coil over air shock to mimic what the hamstring does; a hydraulic joint topped by a clear plastic socket so Seversky can see how the stump fits into it. The place looks like a concrete battlefield, a sprawl of disembodied plaster casts.

“The human body is really adaptable,” Seversky says. He tells his patients they just have to set realistic goals. He assures them they’ll be able to do whatever they could do before the amputation; they’ll just do it a little bit differently.

“I have old prosthetic advertising booklets from the ’20s and ’30s that show amputees doing great things — running, skating on the old technology,” he says. “It’s interesting to me that people were still doing those kinds of activities, they were just working a lot harder. There are so many more options today.”

For Rob Kislow, the array of prosthetic devices he now owns is the key to his independence. “The technology is irreplaceable to me,” Kislow says. “It lets me be active. Otherwise, I might as well have been in Korea or Vietnam.”

Al Dupaul, a 78-year-old Korean War veteran from New Haven, answers the door of his apartment in a rickety electronic wheelchair that buzzes angrily as he moves. His right leg is a pearly, bulbous stump; his left foot, swathed in a sock, is amputated just below the ankle. He lives alone, except for a few nurses who bustle in to check his blood sugar and tend to a painful sore on his upper leg. Dupaul’s broad, bespectacled face is framed in a sweep of grey hair, and he wears blue shorts and a plaid shirt. (“The VA gave me this. Someone donated it — it had a tag and everything, brand new, which is good because I don’t get to shop much,” he says, fingering the buttons sheepishly.)

Dupaul was 21 years old when he went to Korea. “It was almost like a Boy Scout camping trip in the beginning,” he recalls. He was put on a contact team and charged with repairing optical sights and mounts. But after four months, the romance period had faded. The days were blisteringly cold, and the military-issued shoes were not well insulated. Dupaul’s feet sweated and froze onto the pad inside his shoes until he was walking on ice. The frostbite that ensued culminated in diabetes about 15 years later, Dupaul says, and his right leg was amputated shortly thereafter. He lost the left foot a couple of years ago, also to diabetes.

Dupaul is still haunted by nightmares. His sleep is fitful and tense. “I blocked out the experience of being under fire, the dead bodies, the refugees,” he says.

But at night, he is back in Korea, huddled against the bone-chill of the air, hearing the gunfire pound in his eardrums.

After the war, he moved back in with his parents. “I was in limbo,” he remembers. He felt like he did not belong, and he didn’t want to talk to anybody. “When you left for the war you were part of America,” he says. “When you came back, you weren’t.” The isolation was consuming. He thought that no one understood what he’d been through. For years, he sat in his house and rarely went out. He was married, but soon divorced. As he got older, he developed a severe stutter, and he sees a therapist for post-traumatic stress disorder. “I wish I never went to Korea,” Dupaul says.

The prosthetic device for his right leg is gathering dust in the corner of his bedroom. It is a stocky, squat artificial leg, covered in a layer of rubbery synthetic skin, stuffed into a black sneaker. Dupaul never wears it anymore. “I look at it as an ornament now,” he says. His stump is too swollen from diabetes to fit into the socket, and he’s content with his electronic chair. “I never considered high-tech prosthetics. I don’t miss walking right now. I’m 78 years old. This is not a stage of life where I would want to go up hiking in the mountains or anything. In fact, for me, there never was. I have my PTSD to worry about. I don’t get out much.”

Dupaul’s saving grace, he says, has been a weekly support group for amputees at the West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital. Every Wednesday, 15 to 20 veterans — usually all men, although a woman whose arm had been amputated came to a few sessions — meet to share stories and complain about “amputee problems.” Sometimes, the veterans — many of whom use wheelchairs instead of prosthetics — commiserate about the fact that being an amputee means there are rarely opportunities to get out of the house. They discuss the nagging torment of phantom leg pain, how to choose a prosthetist, their depression and poor body image.

The group began meeting 13 years ago. Its first members were three veterans from Korea and World War II. “We had all these experts around telling the veterans what they could and couldn’t do,” says Mary Lou Lauricella, the therapist at the West Haven VA and the moderator of the support group, “but there was no forum for them to talk to each other.”

One older veteran, excited at the prospect of all this new technology, spent weeks researching artificial feet and watching videos of amputees running marathons on sleek, springy legs. But when he finally got his leg, it was too bouncy. He couldn’t use it because “it sent him flying,” Lauricella says.

Lauricella thinks the Korea and Vietnam vets could benefit from the perspective of some younger veterans, but the support group has not yet attracted anyone from Iraq or Afghanistan. Their youngest member is 50 years old. “A lot of the recent vets are in denial,” Lauricella says. “It’s a certain bravado. They tend to think, ‘I don’t need emotional support, I’m just going to get my prosthesis and get on with my life.’”

Dupaul recognizes that the new veterans need time. They have access to a host of opportunities that were never available to them, and for now, they are busy rebuilding their lives. “Our experiences have been different,” Dupaul says. “For the older guys — in Vietnam, you were in a jungle, fighting people you couldn’t see very well. In Iraq, you’re in a desert. You can see who you’re fighting. These are different kinds of wars. And now, the younger guys have all these new devices to distract them, to get them thinking about their lives here rather than what happened in Iraq. But I think when they’re ready, they’ll come here, to us, and we’ll help them through it as much as we can.”

While veterans like Dupaul — too old and too tired to take advantage of cutting-edge prosthetic technology — are still mired in the past, Rob Kislow struggles to focus solely on the present. “I’d never go to a support group,” he says. “I don’t want to hear someone else’s sob story. I have a hard enough time keeping myself motivated and strong. I don’t want to hear ‘poor me.’ I don’t want to go in there and compare scars.”

Today, Kislow is taking classes on business and welding. He plans to open up his own auto shop. He has never used a wheelchair, and insists that he never will.

And unlike Dupaul, Kislow claims that he has no regrets about serving in the military. “It was the best decision I ever made to go to Afghanistan,” he says. “I pushed myself 110 percent to follow something I believed in.”

With new legs and a new life, Kislow is fighting his demons the only way he knows how: through snowboarding and dirt biking, scuba diving and flag football. When the memories start to gnaw at him — the terrible racket of artillery, the sun burning over the hills in Khost, the eyes of the man who almost killed him — he slips into his favorite leg, the one with the acrylic skull printed on the front and the smooth hydraulic ankle. He revs up his motorcycle. He speeds down his quiet, suburban street. And he rides and rides until all he can feel is the wind on his back, in his hair, on his skin.

Military scientists have identified genes and proteins called biomarkers that could enable doctors to tailor personalized treatments for troops suffering traumatic injuries, such as those caused by roadside bombs.

Researchers hope the troops will heal and recover faster, said Navy Cmdr. Eric Elster, a surgeon who co-authored the recent studies.

Roadside bombs cause nearly 65 percent of the wounds suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon statistics. The bombs, also called improvised explosive devices or IEDs, have wounded more than 25,000 troops, records show.

By examining blood, body tissue and fluids at the site of a blast wound, scientists were able to identify the biomarkers that predicted how the body’s immune system will react, said Doug Tadaki, an immunologist and co-author of recent naval studies.

The markers uncovered by the Navy research can help determine whether the gaping wounds left after a bomb explosion will fail and pull apart after surgery has been done to close the injury. Wound failure happens in about 17 percent of the cases where troops suffer multiple and severe wounds, commonly from blast, the Navy research shows. When failure occurs it can turn a war injury into a chronic ordeal, Elster said.

The result of the research may ultimately lead to tailored treatment, Elster said. If doctors can read these biomarkers shortly after wounded troops arrive from the battlefield, they can anticipate how the troop’s body will react.

Research by Elster and other scientists at the Naval Medical Research Center also uncovered biomarkers that can predict whether troops suffering amputations from blast will develop painful bone spurs or abnormal bone growth at the site of amputation, a problem that occurs in about 60 percent of cases involving orthopedic injuries. Since 2003, about 850 troops have suffered major amputations, statistics show.

These growths can interfere with the sizing and fitting of prosthetics and often require further surgery to remove.

Wound failures and bone spurs occur in civilian cases where there are traumatic injuries, but at a far less frequent rate of occurrence, Tadaki said.

Still, the findings could also impact the care of civilians hurt in car accidents or suffering gunshot wounds, said Grant Bochicchio, an emergency room surgeon and professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

“This has a lot of potential benefits, even in our patients,” Bochicchio said.

The Navy scientists — in two research studies published in May in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and recently online in the Annals of Surgery — found that problems such as wound failures or bone spurs occur when the body’s immune system overreacts to the wide spectrum of physical damage that occurs when a service member is caught in an explosion.

Explosions can cause many injuries ranging from direct trauma from the explosion, to secondary wounds from flying debris or from the body being thrown against another surface, the researchers say.

“Your body doesn’t know how to deal with that, so your immune response turns on and stays on,” Elster said in an interview.

If the biomarkers suggest wounds could fail after surgery, scientists may soon develop ways to manipulate the immune system in an effort to control how it reacts.

“It’s really the introduction of personalized medicine,” Elster said.

Airman 1st Class Colton Read looked up from his hospital bed into the face of his wife. A tube down his throat kept him from talking.

Fighting back tears, Jessica Read told her 20-year-old husband that doctors had amputated his right leg above the knee and now they needed to take his left leg, too, to save his life. And all because of a mistake during his gallbladder surgery.

Read’s lips turned white. He started to cry. He reached for a pen and paper on the tray in front of him.

“AF???” he wrote.

Airman 1st Class Colton Read, whose bicep is tattooed with the Air Force logo, wanted to know if he could stay in the service he’d wanted to join since boyhood.

“He told me that after 9/11 that this is what he wanted to do,” Jessica Read recalled. “When we are at a baseball game or an Air Force event and the national anthem plays or a flyover occurs, he says he gets chills every time.”

The Air Force that Read loves, and graduated high school early to join, had nearly killed him — and his first concern was whether it would keep him.

Now, the service is trying to find out what went wrong. Four investigations are underway. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz is receiving updates on Read. A two-star general flew to visit the airman and his family in the hospital.

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley sent his thoughts and prayers to the family and pledged the service will make sure Read “receives the necessary medical care and that he and his family receive the services and support they require throughout the recovery process and beyond.”

The fateful day

Read was nervous before he drove with his wife to David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., to have the laparoscopic gallbladder surgery. Two Air Force doctors had recommended the elective surgery to stop the stomach pain Read was suffering. And if he didn’t opt for the elective surgery, he wouldn’t be deployed.

Read did what all good sons do: He called his mom for advice.

“I said, ‘Don’t be nervous. It is routine. They go in — snip, snip — and usually you go home the same day. You don’t want a diseased organ in your body. It will run you down,’” recalled Shelley Miller-Read, who lives in Ohio. “He said ‘OK,’ went back to the doctor and got it scheduled.”

Read was wheeled into the operating room at 9 a.m. July 9. An hour later, Jessica Read saw a nurse run out: “We need blood, now.”

Jessica Read recalled what she says she was told: A resident had punctured Read’s aortic artery, which is near the gallbladder, with one of four ports that had been inserted into his abdomen. The resident hadn’t even removed the gallbladder. The resident and the chief surgeon, Maj. Kullada Pichakron, who was observing, raced to clamp his artery and sew it up in time to save his life. At 11 a.m., Pichakron brought Jessica Read into the operating room to explain that Read was alive but the artery was leaking. A vascular specialist was needed to properly repair the valve, but the specialist at David Grant had separated from the Air Force eight days earlier. The replacement wasn’t scheduled to arrive until Aug. 5.

Dr. Michael Hines, Jessica Read’s uncle who is a surgeon in Texas, credited the doctors with saving Read’s life after the aorta was punctured.

“A mistake was made, but it is a tribute to those doctors that Colton is still alive,” Hines said.

During the discussion, Jessica Read looked down at her husband’s feet. They were blue

“They rushed me out of the operating room after I noticed,” she said.

The two main arteries carrying blood to Read’s legs were clogged with clotted blood. As time ticked by, the tissue and muscles in Read’s legs began to die.

“Anytime you lose blood supply to any tissue in the body, that tissue will die,” said Dr. Tim Gardner, a heart surgeon and former president of the American Heart Association. “Once blood is blocked from the legs, the legs go pretty fast.”

Jessica Read said that at 2:30 p.m., Pichakron and two unidentified medical center officials came to tell her they decided to transfer her husband by helicopter to University of California Davis Medical Center, some 40 miles north.

The three explained Read’s legs could go without blood six hours before being permanently damaged. More than five hours had already passed. And because of unexplained delays in transportation, it would be four more hours before the emergency surgery would be conducted.

Hines questioned why Read’s doctors didn’t do more to monitor the circulation to Read’s legs.

“Not having blood flow to your legs for nine hours is like having a truck lie on top of your legs for nine hours,” Hines said. “They are going to die.”

The helicopter was scheduled to take off 20 minutes after the conversation. Medical personnel, though, didn’t carry Read onto the helicopter for nearly two hours, at 4:23 p.m.

Neither Jessica Read nor the rest of Read’s family has received an explanation from the Air Force why it took three hours to transport Read to UC Davis.

“It almost feels to me that my husband’s life was not important to them because why did it take so long, and why did he arrive here in the condition that he did,” Jessica Read said. “They didn’t feel the urgency, it seemed.”

Air Force officials refused to discuss events leading to the amputation of Read’s legs and declined an Air Force Times request for an interview with Pichakron. The Air Force would confirm only that Pichakron has been a general surgeon at David Grant for the last four years. She had been a resident at the Travis hospital from 2001 to 2005.

Jessica Read arrived at UC Davis shortly after 5:30 p.m., 10 minutes after her husband. She made a 45-minute drive with two members of Read’s unit, the 9th Intelligence Squadron at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. In the 9th Squadron, Read analyzed the full-motion video fed back from MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers flying over Iraq and Afghanistan.

“He loved working with the guys who are out there fighting every day,” said Airman 1st Class James Lowe, assigned to the 9th squadron with Read.

As soon as Jessica Read walked into UC Davis, she received a sobering report about her husband’s condition.

“The surgeon was real with us and he said, ‘Things don’t look good,’” Jessica Read recalled. “‘There is a real chance your husband might not survive.’”

Read was immediately rushed into surgery. His aortic artery was repaired and blood flow restored to his legs. But his legs swelled under the pressure of the returning blood, and circulation stopped at his knees because the tissue below had died.

“The only thing that has kept my husband alive is the fact that he is young and that he has a good heart, good lungs and good kidney,” she said.

Doctors removed Read’s right leg above the knee at 2:40 a.m. July 10. By then, Read’s kidneys had started to slow down and were worrying doctors.

When Read woke up that afternoon, his wife told him what had happened. By that time, Read’s parents had flown to California — his mother from Chillicothe, Ohio, outside of Columbus, and his father, Steve Read, from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They all cried together.

“If you can imagine sitting there not knowing if your child is alive or dead because you don’t know his status. It was the most unbearable thing I have ever went through in my life,” Read-Miller said.

Airman Read’s family then had to explain to him that doctors would amputate his left leg above the knee and more of his right leg up to the thigh.

Said Jessica Read: “I was scared out of my mind. … I didn’t know whether he was going to come back.”

Fighting the good fight

Almost three weeks after what should have been minor surgery, Read is still fighting for his life. On July 23, he was listed in critical but stable condition. Jessica Read made it clear the possibility that her husband could still die is very real.

As late as July 20, doctors removed even more tissue from Read’s right leg. His left leg has been sealed and is healing. Family members are afraid, though, doctors will have to amputate his right leg up to the hip, ending his chance to walk with prosthetics.

Now, Read’s family is focused solely on Read’s recovery, but they can’t help but think about the mistakes made at David Grant Medical Center.

Air Force policy requires a patient to sign a release form before a resident takes part in a surgery. Jessica Read said she didn’t remember her husband signing that release form.

The Air Force has launched four investigations into Read’s surgery — including three medical investigations and one Command Directed Investigation ordered by 18th Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott III.

The Air Force did not respond to why Scott ordered the investigation, but 18th Air Force is the war-fighting component of Air Mobility Command and Travis is an AMC base.

The three ongoing medical investigations are a root cause analysis, a quality of care review and a medical incident investigation. The individuals involved in Read’s surgery will have their roles examined in the quality of care review, which is reported to the Air Force Surgeon General’s Quality Office.

The medical incident investigation started July 20 and is done by a team of external experts who will have full access to personnel, records and investigations — ongoing or complete. The final report is briefed to the assistant surgeon general, health care operations.

This is only the second medical incident investigation this year. It is the 118th completed in the Air Force since 1998.

This isn’t the first time David Grant Medical Center has faced scrutiny for a routine surgery gone wrong. Staff Sgt. Dean Witt, 25, died in 2003 during an appendectomy. Another airman, Christopher White, died in 2002 during a shoulder surgery.

Just as with Witt and White, though, Read and his family can’t sue David Grant Medical Center or any of the Air Force doctors for their mistakes.

A 1950 Supreme Court decision, commonly known as the Feres Doctrine, bars military members from suing the government for medical malpractice.

Read’s family contacted Richard Gespirini, a retired Army lawyer, about their case. He had to turn them away.

“Until someone steps up and gets this changed in Congress, it won’t matter how gross the case is,” Gespirini said.

There is such a bill in the House right now — HR 1478, the Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act of 2009. Sponsored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., the bill is named for the Marine sergeant who said military doctors repeatedly misdiagnosed his skin cancer. Rodriguez died in 2006.

HR 1478 could be voted on before the end of July in the House Judiciary Committee, but Gespirini isn’t optimistic.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I have to turn away two or three cases a month,” he said. “But this is such a gross case, I did open a file on this case.”

On July 23, Maj. Gen. Bradley A. Heithold traveled from Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where he is commander of the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency to UC Davis to visit Read and his family. Gen. Schwartz chose Heithold because Read’s unit falls under his command.

After the visit, Heithold issued a statement.

“I met this young man for the first time just a couple weeks before this incident, when I visited his squadron at Beale AFB. I was impressed then with his professional talent and his contributions to our mission in the fight. But today, sitting with him in the hospital, I was simply humbled by his courage. This young man exemplifies everything our Air Force stands for: integrity, excellence and devotion to service. He makes me incredibly proud to be an Airman.

“As I told Colton and his family today, the Air Force is remaining close at hand as he continues through his medical recovery, rehabilitation and reintegration. We’ve already taken steps to ensure they get the support they need. I also want to thank the communities around Beale and Travis AFBs for all of the support they have provided the Read family.”

Read’s unit has been there to support Jessica Read since the first surgery.

The 9th Intelligence Squadron assigned two family liaisons — Master Sgt. Aaron Dawson and Master Sgt. Larry Hancock — to help the 15 family members who have flown from across the country to be with Read.

Unit members have helped with a multitude of tasks, from making travel arrangements to delivering hot meals every day, Read-Miller said.

“In these tough times we rally together,” said Master Sgt. Carlos Chavez, Read’s first sergeant. “We want to be there to help Read and his family in any way we can.”

Regardless of the investigations’ outcome, Read wants to stay in the Air Force.

Each one of Read’s family member who spoke to Air Force Times related the story of how Read wrote “AF???”

Read’s father doesn’t see why his son couldn’t return to the Air Force.

“He is sitting down when he does his job,” Steve Read said. “He needs his eyes and his brain, and he has both of those.”

The service will not make any decisions on Read’s status until he is through recovery and rehabilitation, said Lt. Col. Jennifer Cassidy, an Air Force spokeswoman.

After that, Read’s case could go before a medical evaluation board that determines an airman’s fitness for duty if he can no longer perform military duties due to an injury of illness.

The medical evaluation board can rule two ways: a return to duty or a referral to a physical evaluation board. The physical evaluation board is made up of personnelists and medics at Air Force Personnel Command in San Antonio. They are the ones who rule if an airman should remain on active duty, be discharged or be medically retired. Any ruling by the Physical Evaluation Board can be appealed by an airman.

If an airman is medically retired, he will then go through the process of determining his disability rating by the Air Force and the Veterans Affairs Department.

Read’s family members said they think he deserves a chance to stay in the Air Force that he graduated from high school early to join.

“He didn’t choose to lose his legs from an Air Force doctor,” Jessica Read said. “So we think he should have the choice if he wants to stay in or not.”

We wish Key 103 the best of luck with their appeal