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Victory for Victor
Meet Victor
Victor is a handsome, athletic 25 year old year old young man from Guasave, an agricultural town in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico.
Victor Loses his Entire Right Leg
In 2005 Victor was a University student preparing for a career as a physical education teacher. One day, when running, he began to notice a sharp pain in his hip while running. As time went on and the pain became worse he arranged to see a doctor who ran tests and discovered the worst evidence. Victor had a malignant tumor in his left hip. The only way to save his life was to amputate his entire left leg including half of the pelvic bone. He survived the surgery but was left with one leg and a pair of crutches with which to walk and put his life back together. With no insurance or money, Victor did not know where to turn to get a prosthesis.
Victor finds ProsthetiKa
A year and a half later, Victor had heard that Prosthetika had sent a Jonathan Batzdorff, CPO, a prosthetist from California, to Projimo and Victor made the five hour bus trip to see if a prosthesis could be made for him. Prosthetists in Projimo did not know how to make a hemipelvectomy prosthesis so Batzdorff decided to train them while fabricating a prosthesis for Victor.
They had one week to complete the project and the training. Beginning on a hot Sunday morning, they worked from sun-up to sundown each day making molds and taking measurements, forming plastic, assembling and aligning components, sewing straps and doing fittings and more fittings. On Thursday at 4 pm, Victor was walking in a new prosthesis.
For Victor, it was the first time in a year and a half that he looked down and saw two feet. With a huge smile, he could barely contain his happiness as he took his first steps. He began practicing with two crutches; and after two hours he took his first step with one crutch.
Friday was the last day of Batzdorff’s work. It was spent doing finishing touches on the prosthesis, training Victor in negotiating stairs, and showing Alberto how to do follow up adjustments and repairs.
As Batzdorff left for the airport, Victor, with a smile and a wave good bye, walked from PROJIMO to the bus stop for his 5 hour bus ride back to Guasave.
