Updated: October 4, 2022
Sponsored by North Shore Prosthetics & Orthotics
Having an amputation can disrupt a person’s life, but North Shore Prosthetics and Orthotics has proven that life can become an even greater adventure with the right prosthesis.
President Eric Welton started North Shore Prosthetics and Orthotics in 2017 when he was finishing up his degree in mechanical engineering in the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He said he got the idea because he needed a good, quality place to get his legs made.
Welton has been an amputee for 14 years now and continues to live life to the extreme. So far, he’s up to 7,000 skydive jumps.
“I’ve sort of had to pioneer my way through learning how to surf,” he explains. “Hiking, biking, free-diving… I’ve had to just kind of figure out on my own how to make all of that happen and how to adapt a prothesis to these high level activities that you just take for granted until the ability to walk has been taken away from you.”
Welton has also started an amputee support group on Oahu to share his knowledge of what he’s learned from being an amputee and the unique challenges they face while living in Hawaii.
Tommy Counihan IV was in the army as a combat engineer. On Mother’s Day in 2011, he was hit by an IED blast.
“I ended up amputating three weeks later right before my 21st birthday. That put me in a really deep, dark depression,” Counihan says. “Just the act of standing up on a surf board again changed my world. I learned through pushing myself that I actually just had to re-learn how to do things in a different way.”
Counihan says his life has gotten exponentially better by working with North Shore Prosthetics and Orthotics, and his prosthetics are helping him in ways he never dreamed.
North Shore Prosthetics and Orthotics aims to promote people living a full and active lifestyle regardless of the limitations they may experience using prosthetics and orthotics.
For more information: northshoreprosthetics.com
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Original source: https://www.hinowdaily.com/north-shore-prosthetics-orthotics-helps-people-live-live-full-active-lifestyles/