When someone in your family is going through a hard time, it’s incumbent on us to do everything we can to protect and shield them from the pain. However, when the problem is as serious as someone losing a limb it can be hard to find the best way to help them. In that moment in time, though, it’s often when we are at our most innovative: to help someone when no solution seems good enough.
Take the story of Atchari and Steve Watson. Steve had lost his leg and was waiting for a prosthetic leg to be delivered via the NHS. However, as you might have heard, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic that is causing medical supply shortages in vast numbers. That’s naturally causing a bit of a problem for some people – including individuals like Steve.
It meant that instead of getting the prosthetic leg as he had hoped for, Steve would be waiting for months to get one. NHS capacity is simply overloaded, and many ‘non-essential’ activities are being curtailed. Not one to leave her husband without, though, Atchari got to work and came up with a rather incredible solution.
The Shotley Bridge couple got to work on an innovative, unique idea that was just the antidote Steve needed. Made from a piece of wood that is then attached to a moon boot, Atchari made a tremendous solution for Steve from old bits of material found in their shed!
It shows you that we don’t have to always look for a solution immediately from the NHS. While it’s always useful to get the real thing, a proper prosthetic, for Steve it must be nice just to have some semblance of movement and mobility back in his life.
Having only lost his leg in January after a fall, Steve was already in a tough place with the situation. The loss of a leg is never easy to live with, and when it happens just as the world begins to fall into a medical nightmare, it can seem truly scary. However, Steve now has some form of means of getting around and enjoying being able to feel relatively independent.
While it might not be the full prosthetic he would have wanted and hoped for, it’s definitely a step in the right direction. For now, it’ll probably be the best DIY prosthetic that you will see for some time!