From
The Detroit News. In the picture, Todd Schaffhauser shows Gabrielle Farmer of Bloomfield Township how to do lunges with her prosthesis.
Myles Davis dreams of becoming a professional basketball player -- if he can learn to run faster with his prosthesis.
The 21-year-old Detroiter lost his leg to cancer when he was 8. Although he hops and skips, he still gets around fast enough to win gold medals in Paralympic competitions, a U.S. Olympic committee-sponsored competition for people with disabilities. Nevertheless, he dreams of a smoother, swifter gait.
Today, he'll take his quest higher when he'll get more instruction from two of the world's fastest Paralympians, Dennis Oehler and Todd Schaffhauser, at the Amputee Walking School at the Detroit Medical Center's Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.
"I'm hopping right now," Davis says, "but when I can get that little speed, I look like I am running. They are trying to teach me how to do foot-over-foot running instead of hopping and skipping. That way, I'll be even faster."
The Amputee Walking School, which also is sponsored by Michigan Orthopedic Services, is designed for everyone from young amputees who lost limbs because of violence or cancer to seniors who lost legs to diabetes. Some students will come to the workshop without the ability to stand on their own; others will arrive in wheelchairs, ready to try walking with their prosthesis again.
But Schaffhauser says Davis' story illustrates what commonly happens to amputees: their insurance runs out and their physical therapy stops short of teaching them all they need to know to fully live their lives.
That's where the pair, who travel the world running amputee schools, step in.
"Myles has got the potential to be a Paralympic athlete," Schaffhauser said. "Along the way he didn't get enough rehab to do some things. It takes consistent instruction. We're looking forward to working with him to run step-over-step to run smoother and faster."
Like Davis, Schaffhauser was diagnosed with bone cancer and had his left leg amputated above the knee. In 1988, he became the world's fastest above-the-knee amputee by running 100 meters in 15.77 seconds at the Paralympics in Seoul, Korea. Oehler lost his leg below the knee after being struck by a car in 1984, a few days before he was to sign a professional soccer contract. He set a world record, 11.73 seconds in the 100-meter dash, in the 1988 Paralympic Games.
Their program started largely against their will 20 years ago when a prosthetic company in Texas contacted them about doing a workshop for four amputees. While they didn't want the job, the native New Yorkers' physical therapist convinced them any physical therapist could teach the class, but no one would be more effective than actual amputees who had transitioned from physical therapy to gold medal Paralympians. Since then, they've trained more than 12,000 amputees to walk and run.
Linda McKinney, a senior physical therapist at the rehabilitation institute and an event coordinator, said they bring the clinic back every quarter because it's proven beneficial for clients.
"These guys are so motivating," she says. "They tell a story about how bad they had it, how hard their therapists were on them. They show how to do something, and instantly the patients want to get up and try it.
From The Detroit News. In the picture, Todd Schaffhauser shows Gabrielle Farmer of Bloomfield Township how to do lunges with her prosthesis.