My “Life is going to be OK” moment…. Bryan’s Story

My amputee journey started on 11/8/2008. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time kind of accident, and my right foot was run over by the counterweight tires of a forklift. The compartment syndrome was so bad in the ambulance on the way to the hospital that once we arrived, they immediately started skin grafts from my upper thigh to try to save all the torn skin on my foot. After about a week of sitting in the hospital, my foot developed gangrene and was amputated.

I had never met an amputee in my life up to this point and had no idea of what to expect. Was I going to walk again? How am I supposed to live an everyday life without a leg? It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to take in. “You’re going to lose your leg”. How are you supposed to react to that? Forward about 3 days from hearing they needed to amputate my foot, the orthopedic surgeon who was going to be doing the amputation made a surprise visit to my hospital room with 3 other amputees. I’ll never forget that day. The second I watched these three guys walk into my hospital room, I knew life was going to be ok. I knew it was going to be a difficult road ahead, but sitting there talking with these three individuals opened my eyes to all the possibilities of prosthetics.

A week later, I had my amputation, and the rest is history! I started off wearing carbon fiber feet for the first year or two, dealing with stress cracks and delamination, having to replace them every month or so, and then this foot called the RUSH 87 came out. COMPLETE GAME CHANGER. The day I took my first step in a RUSH foot, I knew life was mine again!

I now live off-grid on a homestead I started way up in the mountains of Arizona. I love to go fishing, ride my mountain bike, and snowboard. When I’m not living the homestead life, my daughter, my dog, and I travel around the country in my motorhome, exploring, hiking, and seeing as much as we possibly can!