ATHLETES WITH DISABILITIES NETWORK NORTHEAST CHAPTER is dedicated to creating awareness and offering mentoring and opportunities for local athletic, recreational and education activities for those with physical disabilities, especially for veterans and first responders.
“There’s No Replacement for Competitive Spirit”
Gianna Rojas was born in 1962 in Bath, Maine and soon discovered life presented her with challenges. She was born without fingers on her left hand, into a military family which relocated every few years. She had to learn how to build rapport and new friendships with the other kids very quickly and her outgoing personality was a big plus. Unfortunately, however, having one hand often made her the target of school bullies. Once, she was even pushed into her locker at school and trapped in it for 3 hours. Events like that helped to build her strong, empathetic character. She dedicates herself to helping those facing similar challenges.
Brandon Holiday and Tyson
Brandon Holiday grew up athletic – playing various sports, tennis, baseball and training in martial arts. He also grew up with Systemic Lupus, Primary Addison’s and a blood clotting condition (Antiphosolipid Syndrome). After college, he became a police officer but an injury in the line of duty and medical complications from Systemic Lupus forced him to leave the police force. The changing symptoms of his disease made it necessary for him to adjust his life. Lupus is an autoimmune disease where the body attacks itself and causes symptoms like chronic fatigue, pleurisy, high fevers, restlessness, and loss of kidney function.
In 2006, after four months in the hospital battling with blood clots, wound care and hyperbaric chamber treatments, doctors had to amputate his left leg below the knee. Reaching out for help facing his challenges dealing with his injuries and disease led him Challenged Athletes Foundation who awarded him a grant to travel and attend the Extremity Games. It was life-changing for him.
“I realized that there had to be more than just accepting you’re depressed and here is some medicine to help.”
When Lester Sabolich opened his prosthetic clinic in Oklahoma City in 1947, he just wanted to make a change in lives. His son, John, grew up watching his father design prostheses and was inspired to join the business. He attended New York University and became a certified prosthetist-orthotist, eventually taking over his father’s business in the 1980’s..
Ask someone what they think of when they think of an early prosthetic and they would likely bring up the Captain Hook and Pegleg Pete images from tales of pirates. Actually, 3,000 year old prosthetic devices have been uncovered by archeologists on mummified remains.
This prosthetic toe dates back to between 950 and 710 B.C. Kenneth Garrett/Getty Images
Jump forward nearly 2,000 years, into the Dark Ages. Knights, in an effort to maintain their image of strength, hid missing limbs with iron prosthetics. They weren’t functional beyond hiding the lost limb.
In the early 1500’s, French military doctor Ambroise Paré invented a hinged mechanical hand and prosthetic legs with locking knees and specialized attachment harnesses. A Dutch surgeon, Pieter Verduyn developed a lower leg prosthesis with specialized hinges around the end of the 17th century.