Riding for Recovery

U.S. Army Captain Ferris Butler was on patrol in Sunni Triangle, Iraq in December 2006 when an improvised explosive device tore through his Humvee and injured both his legs.

After 15 months in a wheelchair at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Butler was sick of his limited mobility. Despite all 52 of his surgeries, nothing seemed to be working. His left leg was still severely damaged, and he had already lost half of his right foot.

Butler's 53rd surgery, an elective amputation of his left leg below the knee, left him wondering if he would be able to ever do anything athletic again. So when the folks at Walter Reed asked him to get on a bike in March 2008, less than a week after receiving his first-ever prosthetic leg, Butler was skeptical but decided it was worth a try.

"You're really just in a deep, dark place not knowing if you're ever going to be super active again," Butler says. "I literally transferred myself from the wheelchair to the bicycle."

http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s1-3-12-17592-1,00.html

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