Losing a leg hardly fazed Lonnie Smith. It's tough to climb ladders with his prosthesis, and he has to switch legs when he swims. But otherwise, no bellyaching.Amputation didn't much bother Sampson, Smith's Rottweiler, either. The dog gets along fine without his right front leg, and he still sits up to beg with one outstretched paw.Together, Smith and Sampson make an unusual human and canine team, walking examples of life after limb loss, a portrait of toughness with 4 1/2 legs between them.Sampson rides along in the back of Smith's Ford pickup. People stop them in the Home Depot or at their daily Bojangles' breakfast, seeking comfort as they face similar surgery themselves."He can't keep himself up while he's scratching," said Smith, 49, a builder. "That's the only tough thing."About 2 million Americans are living without a limb. It's an increasingly common surgery, fueled by an older population, rising diabetes and a pair of wars."Probably the No. 1 reason is the baby boomers are aging," said Mike Schuch, the doctor who made Smith's leg. "There's more of us. Diabetes and obesity are increasing. Those are the trends."Also, Schuch said, battlefield medicine has improved so drastically that soldiers end up as amputees after injuries that would have killed troops in World War II. A program manager for the military's joint amputation care system said 800 service members had lost limbs in Afghanistan and Iraq since the end of 2001.Smith and Sampson came by their amputations in a more everyday fashion -- Smith on a motorcycle, Sampson by bone cancer.In July 2001, Smith was riding back from a late lunch when a car crossed the centerline and sideswiped his leg.He managed to keep the bike upright, and he didn't notice his foot had been crushed until he tried to push the pedal and nothing happened.The hardest part was seeing his wife's face when she met him in the emergency room. That was on a Thursday.By Monday, having talked to Schuch, he opted for amputation about 6 inches below the knee.Had doctors taken just the foot, he said, he couldn't have stayed as active. All his body weight would have been pressing down near his ankle, a smaller space.On the following Tuesday, he lost the leg. On Friday, he was home. After three months, he was walking normally again.Now, when children point or stare at his prosthesis, he tells them it's his "Robo Leg." It's bionic, Smith says in jest. The attention doesn't bother him. There's nothing unusual, nothing freakish about a false limb, he says. The more people avert their eyes and pretend they don't see, the more it keeps an unnecessary stigma.Smith shed far more tears over Sampson.Now 11, the dog started showing pain last summer, and veterinarians diagnosed bone cancer. Smith agonized, finally deciding to take the dog's right front leg off in surgery at N.C. State University's College of Veterinary Medicine.As a pair of amputees, their bond grew. Smith walks with a slight limp, and Sampson lopes behind on his front paw, balancing on his back two legs to reach for biscuits."Dogs just adapt so much better," Smith said. "People, they worry about things. Dogs don't worry. That's what you can learn from a dog."Smith estimates he has counseled two or three -dozen amputees since his own accident, including a sheriff's deputy who accidentally shot his own foot, a fireman injured by falling debris, a 4-year-old boy who lost both legs to meningitis.Sampson isn't always around to lend a canine example. He tends to stay in the back of Smith's truck, along with a Plott hound and Labrador retriever who follow his three-legged lead.Reach Josh Shaffer at jshaffer(at)newsobserver.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
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