How This Action Sports Star Built His Own Prosthetic Leg

the word disabled athlete I absolutely hate it I don't look at myself as disabled at all I have a disability everybody in this world has a disability of some sort but you're only disabled if you believe you are I'm just an athlete that needs a couple extra tools this great big story was made possible by Geico believe it Geico could save you 15% or more on car insurance my competitive history started out on a BMX bike when I was like 13 years old which quickly evolved into motocross and then got into racing snowmobiles at the peak of my pro career I had finished fourth place in the national championship series I'd landed on the podium a handful of times in 2008 during a qualifying race in northern Michigan I was thrown from my machine which caused a compound fracture that severed the main artery that feeds my lower leg it was apparent three days later that amputation was the only way to basically save my life I was floored I mean I didn't see it coming at all my profession and livelihood is to be racing a snowmobile or a dirt bike you know initially I'm like I'm gonna be done racing I'm gonna be done competing but about five weeks after the injury had happened I got to try out my new prosthetic leg the first leg that I got it worked okay for walking it was really basic mechanical leg actually got on my snowmobile within a week or so of getting it and right away I understood that yeah this leg is definitely not gonna be the ticket for me to get back into the sports that I love I was presented with this problem basically I needed to absorb impact with my leg like my quadricep muscles do I know suspension components from the dirt bikes and snowmobiles so I'm looking at this as a suspension component I've needed shock a spring and a frame to hold it all and make it move in the directions I needed to move and I drew on it for about five weeks or so just pencil sketches and pages and pages of designs and then from there I went to the shop and started cutting part I had all the pieces and assemble it put it on my leg and then immediately went over to my dirt bike and went for a ride seven months after my accident I was racing dirt bikes on a leg that I built in my garage the original moto knee was developed for me to get back on my dirt bike and that summer after meeting a whole bunch of other amputees I realized that there's so many other people that can utilize the equipment I was working on so I started thinking about creating a company around it the coolest part about what I'm doing is it allows me to continue to be an athlete so I do all the testing on the racetrack and the practice track which gets me into a lot of new stuff as well like snowboarding it turns out I got pretty good at it I enjoyed it got talked into competing for the first time and that evolved into traveling around the world on the World Cup tour and earning my spot on the 2018 Paralympic snowboarder team and won a gold medal and border cross and a silver medal and bang slalom and I'm a nine-time X Games gold medalist between adaptive racing and dirt bike snowmobiles and now snow bikes you know I've kind of reached my goals with all that so this year I'm gonna step it up a notch and I'm gonna try and qualify into the pro snow bike race I tell you what it really sucks to be an amputee sometimes but there's so many different amazing things that I've been able to experience since my injury happen I'm making the most of the situation and I'm still living life to the fullest [Music]

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 1,337,617

Rating: 4.96454 out of 5

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, athlete, amputee, paralympic, BioDapt, prosthetic, leg, snowmobile, winter sports, X Games, potential, willingness, snocross, designer, dreams, New Releases, Sports & Action, sports, action, Biography & Profile, biography, profile, Frontiers

Id: ttU0BteieF0

Length: 4min 5sec (245 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 11 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/itsnotthequestion]

I want that foot soo bad 😅

Anyone got any experience with it?

[u/chipthecrip]

Love that leg!

[u/thecartwrightfamily1]

Wow!!

[u/Socket_Socks_Ltd]

I totally agree, I don't like that title "Disabled". I am more abled today with a new prosthetic leg than I was for the past 30 years.

[u/Huib-van-der-Veur]

I want this for my hand, but i am affraid its not refined enough to use something like this for fingers....