GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Small steps taken beneath the hot Central American sun meant cleaning the house would no longer be the same challenge for the Guatemalan woman, as she tested out her prosthetic leg fitted by Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation.
"If we're not down there, they're not going to get a prosthesis," said Mary Free Bed Chief Medical Officer Benjamin Bruinsma, MD. "Hope and freedom is contagious when you're on a plane and heading down there with everybody."
In February, a nine-person team from the Grand Rapids hospital traveled to Guatemala City, fitting 25 people with free prosthetic limbs in partnership with Range of Motion Project, a global nonprofit.
"When you're using crutches, you can't carry anything. You can't do anything," Bruinsma said.
Molding custom plaster casts and covering them with thin sheets of plastic— heated up in a bread oven, no less— the team helped adults and even young children hurt in motor vehicle accidents.
"We were doing plaster modifications out in the sunshine, it was wonderful," said Lauren Jones, a physical therapist who taught patients how to take their first steps.
Due to limited insurance coverage for prosthetic limbs in Guatemala, many people, including a man named Luis, had used crutches for more than a year.
"It just melts your heart," Jones said. "Letting him get back to the life he had before and showing him that life's not over, it’s just a new beginning.”
Thirty minutes after putting on his prosthesis and "crying in happiness," Luis was kicking a soccer ball.
"To have that moment with him, knowing that we're giving his life back to him was so important," Jones said.
