Brent Kuemmerle scales a cliff in the Black Hills near Mount Rushmore.From Voice of America:
Brent Kuemmerle teaches amputees how to rock climb and snowboard. He has a unique appreciation for the challenges his students face: he has been rock climbing for 16 years… 13 of those, with one leg.
The large number of vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with missing limbs means Kuemmerle's services are in high demand.
Kuemmerle lost his right leg below the knee in a car accident in 1995. He spent a long time recovering in the hospital and now uses a special prosthetic limb with an attachment that's designed for climbing rocks.
Climbers will tell you that the excitement of their sport makes it addictive. They say rock climbing is like a drug. For Kuemmerle, it was the medicine he needed.
"Climbing was the one thing that got me out of the bed in the hospital, that made me realize I need to get strong, I need to get healthy again, and I need to keep climbing."It's this love of outdoor sports that Kuemmerle now tries to share with others who've lost limbs. In the summer, he works as an adjunct professor at the Lake Tahoe Community College in California, teaching rock climbing classes. In the winter, he's a snowboard instructor for Disabled Sports USA.