Amputee finds new high-tech leg to stand on

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- In an examination room equipped with hand bars, a full-length mirror, a few inspirational posters, Don Harway sits in a chair. He has on shorts. He usually wears shorts. He has nothing to hide.His right leg is gone, cut off just below the knee, the result of a motorcycle accident. The stump, called the "residual limb" in polite medical terms, looks a bit pinkish and chafed. The muscles in his thigh are still in the process of atrophy and change.Harway, 36, sits in the chair and rubs his exposed stump. He can move it back and forth. Admittedly, it's an odd spectacle - this completely responsive, functional knee, attached to nothing, kicking air. Even so, in his mind, in the phenomenon known as "phantom limb," Harway can still feel the kinship, the majesty of his toes. There is no pain, just an aching regret. Now he slips on a gel-lined sleeve over his stump. The bottom of the sleeve holds a metal locking pin. His prosthetist, Bryan Hayes, hands Harway his new prosthesis, which consists of a plastic socket, a leaf-spring ankle, a splayed, carbon-fiber foot, now snug inside a khaki-green Nike running shoe.Harway slips his stump into the prosthesis. There is an audible "click." Now he stands like a man.This is the story of Don's leg.On another afternoon, Bryan Hayes sits in his office at Hanger Prosthetics & Orthotics in Sacramento, Calif. He is holding a foot in his hand. Not a real foot. But a graphite composite foot, a marvel of stability, pace, clad in soft foam flesh.Attached to a pivoting, piston-driven hydraulic ankle, this foot puts measurable spring in the step.Hayes is 37 years old. He's a certified prosthetist. He's sturdy, laconic, with blue eyes and a reddish goatee. "As a kid, I was always fascinated by the human body," he says. "And I always liked to work on cars. So, this field is the perfect combination. I like to help people. I like to build stuff. Building a leg is like fine-tuning a race car."Hayes uses a laser scanner to measure a perfect, three-dimensional image of the stump, which he can then digitally shape and alter on his laptop computer. Once satisfied, he e-mails the image to a carving machine, which, using a block of high-density foam, cuts the block to size as if it were a Chippendale leg.From there, using the whole spectrum of Space Age materials - titanium, thermoplastics, composites, Kevlar, fast- setting resins, hydraulics, myoelectrics - technicians can then build a prosthetic device with almost lifelike function and flexibility.But technology can only go so far.Scientists have not been able to replicate a positive mental attitude. Or heart."That's everything," says Hayes. "Especially in the beginning. Some people get depressed. They never get over the loss of their limb. Others see it (loss) as another challenge to conquer." Harway was one of those looking to conquer the challenge. On a motorcycle ride in 1999, Harway went airborne and came crashing down, suffering a high-compression fracture of his foot, ankle, tibula and fibula."It was like crushing a cigar," says Harway of his limb.Over the next eight years, he had eight surgeries to repair the damage. The leg never healed. Says Harway, in a rare moment of bitterness: "I was dragging my ass around for eight years on crutches. I was in pain. I was miserable. There was no ice, no painkiller you could put on that sucker."Finally, he developed a staph infection, which invaded the marrow of his shin. Sick, his ankle grotesque, Harway was hospitalized. He recalls the surgeon coming into his room, saying, "Sorry about your leg. You're going to have to have it amputated."His response? "Cool. When?"The leg was taken off Sept. 25, 2006."I was walking by Christmas," boasts Harway.Asked his reaction when he first woke up and realized his right leg was missing, Harway says, "It hurt bad. It felt like my (missing) toes were stuck in a Coke bottle. But I didn't feel sick anymore."Asked when he knew he was home free, he laughs, "I could walk to the refrigerator and get a beer! I could go to the bathroom without a pair of crutches."Still, understandably, he misses his leg."You can't believe it's gone forever," he says, massaging his thigh, looking wistful. "But it is."His dimmed mood quickly rebounds."I've always loved machinery," he says, flexing his prosthesis. "This is my machine. Before, there was carbon fiber in my dirt bike. Now it's in my leg."And what a machine."When I have my leg on," says Harway, proud, grateful, standing tall, "I am no longer an amputee."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)