Prosthetic leg won’t slow student’s stride
Written by Ellis Goodwin, Daily staff writer
Reprinted from The Oklahoma Daily

Freshman ‘happy to be alive’ after accident

After dropping off his prom date one early April morning, Levi Cooper started his 45-minute trip home. It would be a month before he made it.

Ten minutes from home he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into a guardrail and plummeted over the side of a bridge.

“The guardrail went through the car, hit the driveline and went up, slicing my leg off,” said Cooper, University College freshman.

He laid there for an hour, bleeding but never losing consciousness, and did not realize his leg was severed at first.

“I didn’t realize it,” Cooper said. “But I moved (my leg) and it just slid up and down the side of the guardrail, then I knew it was gone.”

With a shattered femur and severed right leg, Cooper laid there expecting to die, quickly coming to accept his fate, he said.

“At first it was really scary, but then after like three minutes, it was fine because I thought I was dead.

“I was pretty much at peace with it.”

After facing death and losing a limb, Cooper said he has a new outlook on life.

“Whenever I woke up, I knew it was gone,” he said. “The leg being gone didn’t really bother me, I was just happy to be alive.”

He said he has changed a great deal since the accident. He used to worry a lot, but now he said he takes each day as it comes.

“Life is beautiful,” Cooper said. “It really made me realize not to sweat the small stuff.”

Cooper said somebody noticed the damaged guardrail and found the car at the bottom of the bridge, then called Paramedics.

Recovery

Cooper said he lost 85 percent of his blood and spent a week in the intensive care unit. He was released after a month a Wichita, Kan., hospital and spent the next six months in a wheelchair.

He enrolled in OU for last fall, went to Camp Crimson and attended classes in wheelchair.

The guardrail took his leg April 15, but thanks to Scott Sabolich Prosthetics and Research in Oklahoma City, six months later he was back on his feet.

Cooper’s leg, and the other prosthetics created by the facility, are made of aerospace materials like carbon fiber, Kevlar and titanium, owner Scott Sabolich said.

“We use a lot of the composite layouts that they might use on a stealth fighter – lightweight, very strong and can actually withstand twice his body weight.”

Sabolich said the relationship between amputee and prosthetist is closer than with other health care providers.

Cooper said the Sabolich facility got him up and walking again.

He went to the facility to work with prosthetist Theron Hogue, who designed Cooper a prosthetic leg.

“I had the best prosthetics guy in the world,” Cooper said. “Dr. Theron actually made all the prosthetics for the Paralympics team, and he did some stuff in foreign countries.”

Hogue also had a prosthetic leg since he was a child, and his understanding of the technology and what Cooper was going through helped Cooper get back on his feet so quickly, he said.

“He (Hogue) knew exactly how prosthetics should fit and feel,” Cooper said. “He could tell me how all the muscles are supposed to move and everything.

“We had gotten very close during the six months I was there,” he said. “He was pretty much my idol.”

Hogue was killed in a hit-and-run accident in December.

Cooper said he was devastated when his doctor died. Today he has a new doctor he has been doing physical therapy with.

Sabolich said their ultimate goal is to allow patients to live the life they want to.

“Goals change, activities change, and as people want to do other things, we have to continually fix, adjust and change the design process. It is a very involved process,” Sabolich said. “Whether it’s rockclimbing, or skydiving, or soccer, or paintball or whatever, we try and put them right back in the same situation and design the prosthesis around that function.”

Today, the only hint that Cooper has a prosthetic is the slight limp in his step.

On campus

Life is not easy for students with disabilities. But OU’s on-campus Disability Resource Center provides students, faculty and staff with assistance based on their individual needs, said center  Director Suzette Dyer.

“The Disability Resource Center provides programmatic and architectural accommodations to students, faculty and staff on all three OU campuses,” Dyer said. “Resources are put in place to provide equal educational and employment opportunities.”

In fall 2007, the center had more than 400 OU students registered to receive accommodations, Dyer said.

Cooper said he has not gone to the resource center for help, even though he could if he wanted to.

Cooper said he enjoys a full life and does not have much trouble with his prosthetic. However, he said, it does bother him sometimes – when he has to walk long distances, when he first puts it on, and when the weather is bad.

The distance between classes is the biggest challenge Cooper has had to overcome since getting his prosthetic. It takes two or three times the effort for him to walk normally, he said.

“My walk takes as much energy as your fast jog, and it’s really tiring to go that distance,” Cooper said.

Learning to walk with his prosthetic was fairly easy, but perfecting it is a little more difficult, he said.

“I’m almost there, but I haven’t quite mastered it yet.”

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