The need to center on material not related to the angst of the current political climate, I sat down with some of the magazines on the my to read pile. Near the top of the pile, I picked up Family Motor Coaching, Nov, 2016. It is one of the magazines that helps us RVers keep up with news shared by wheel ready vagabonds traveling down the road.
As usual with seniors like myself, I am very tuned into the issues of mobility, getting around on two feet or adopting the means to help us move about; At times, I have joined the ranks of those needing canes, walkers, wheelchairs or scooters. (I am a lucky one at this time, regaining my agility and ability to move well, unsupported). Therefore, one article in particular caught my attention as published in Family Motor Coach Magazine, Nov. 2016 and written by John Johnston, Associate Editor of the magazine. It is entitled, FROM TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH.
The hero of the story is an RVer whose story is of yet another strong willed soul learning to conquer and overcome adverse events in his life. I paraphrase from this dramatic article hoping this will be helpful both to humans and pets of those animal lovers among us.
In the 70’s at 20 years of age while working in a fertilizer plant, Ronnie heroically stepped between 2 railroad cars setting a brake, thusly preventing a major injury to a foreman. Knocked down by the blow, a wheel ran over one of Ronnie’s legs, leaving him in grave peril. He amazingly saved his own life, but not one of his legs. After enduring leg surgery and amputation, he walked out of the hospital with the support of a cane and worked many jobs, eventually teaming up with his dad driving tractor trailers across the country, until a trucking strike changed his life and led him to an amazing career. Sporting a new prosthesis with the support of the state of Florida’s vocational rehab program, he tested off the charts showing a tremendous ability in mechanical skills.
On he went from the bottom up in the prosthetics industry. He married after meeting a lovely woman on the dance floor and together they celebrate a long landmark career in prosthetic design. He became an inventor as well, developing a skin like cosmetic product for prostheses and with his wife started a successful business; Prosthetics Research Specialists Inc. They began their new life style in a tent slowly advancing to a motor home and beyond.
But that is not all. A friend shared with him a “sad story of her horse who had ruined a knee after stepping in a hole. Euthanizing was out of the realm of acceptable. Could Ronnie make a knee brace for the animal? Again, the inventor, innovator and thorough researcher was successful in making such a brace and now runs another incredible business having helped a large variety (!) of species get back on their feet. For the sake of my promise for brevity in this blog, I just wanted to share this amazing couples’ story and amazing career, (perhaps as a modern day Noah of biblical fame, saving human and wildlife from peril) laced with courage, determination and the skills needed to regain the ability to be independent and active. I hope so much to meet these RVers somewhere down the road.
My life-long pursuit is to capture life as it happens