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| 7/29/2010 12:03:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Orthotist Jacob Keough, left, adjusts the height of the new prosthetic legs Noel received a few weeks ago in Leon, Nicaragua. Noel lost both legs as an infant following an automobile accident. The short height of the legs is to teach Noel how to walk and fall without hurting himself. Eventually, the legs will be raised to Noel’s full height. |
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| An elderly woman received a prosthetic foot from Keough. Her lower leg was amputated as a result of diabetes. |
| | Step Global | More information about Step Global's mission and recent trips to Nicaragua can be found at www.stepglobal.org, or on Step Global's Facebook page. Information regarding donations of prosthetics can be found there, as well as other ways to help the Nicaraguan people.
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Blair man takes global step to help others walk
Stephanie Ludwig
Reporter
Noel lost both his legs in a car accident when he was 8 months old.
Now 12, he has never learned to walk, and the Nicaraguan boy must get around mostly by crawling on his hands and the stumps of his legs.
But today, Noel walks on two prosthetic limbs. Granted, they are a little on the short side, since he was just fitted with them a few weeks ago. But for the first time in his life, Noel is walking.
"It's going to be interesting for him. Right away, he was learning the balancing of walking," said Jacob Keough, a certified orthotist with OrthoMedics.
Noel was just one of many Nicaraguan people Keough and a team of orthotists and technicians fitted with 49 prosthetic limbs in mid-July as part of Step Global, a charity a colleague of Keough's started to give prosthetics to the people of Nicaragua. The country was ripped apart by civil war in the '80s, leaving many without limbs, while poor medical care and natural disasters have claimed many more arms and legs.
"Most people just don't get a limb," Keough said, who has lived in Blair for many years. "The ones that do don't fit well. For the most part everyone just goes without. They're just doing the best they can with what they have."
As an orthotist in Omaha, Keough sees people everyday who need new prosthetic limbs, or to get their existing ones adjusted or fixed for some minor discomfort. In Nicaragua, the people have no such luxury, often using pipes, old, ill-fitting prosthetics, or whatever they can find just to get through everyday life.
That's where Step Global comes in. The group has made several trips to the country to make molds of sockets for people needing limbs, and then come home to assemble donated prosthetic pieces to bring back down to Nicaragua.
On their last trip, the group brought down 49 prosthetics including 18 knees and 15 feet. The group saw people like Jose, who lost an arm last year when two men tried to rob him of his bicycle and they cut off the limb with a machete when he refused. Another man lost his leg above the knee after being shot in the toe in war. The injury became infected and an experimental medical procedure cost him his lower leg.
Keough said there is a social stigma in losing a limb, making many of the people they saw outcasts. It's also dangerous, in a country where "handicap accessible" has yet to make it into any building code.
"They were so grateful. There were a lot of tears and a lot of hugs. That's when you find out what you did for them," he said.
The group can hardly wait to go back, especially after hearing about a village six hours north of their clinic site in Leon. The village has at least 100 amputees living in it, as well as many children badly in need of leg braces to walk.
In fact, the man who told Keough and his team about his village was missing his legs and used crutches to get around. He had no interest in getting anything for himself, though.
"He said the adults were not as pressing. He said, 'if a child walks tomorrow, he walks forever,'" Keough said.
Step Global is hoping to make more trips down to Nicaragua in the next year, to help more people and to possibly develop a clinic where natives can do the work they are doing on a full-time basis. Right now, they just want to raise awareness of their cause and solicit donations of limbs for the people of Nicaragua.
Keough said the average prosthetic user in the United States has four or five extra limbs that they aren't using, whether because it doesn't fit anymore or it has outlived its purpose. By donating a prosthetic to Step Global, the limb can be refurbished and reused by someone who needs it instead of gathering dust in a closet.
"Don't throw those limbs away," he said. "There's a great home for them where they can make a difference."
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