Anthony “Tony” Johnson, calling himself the “bionic man,” was all smiles as he took his first steps on Wednesday.
At age 57, he was right in step with new technology wearing a prosthetic device that works similar to a human foot.
Johnson, a Bladen County native, lost a major portion of his foot when he was working as a tree cutter in Jones County on Dec. 19, 2011. Only his heel was left, his wife Wanda said. Doctors amputated his leg below the knee so he could use a prosthetic.
Brian Frasure, a certified prosthetist of Apex and director of clinical services for iwalk, a company based in Bedford, Mass., was fitting the device for Johnson at EastPoint Prosthetics & Orthotics in Kinston on Wednesday.
“It uses a combination of motors, microprocessors and sensors,” Frasure said about the new iwalk BiOM ankle system, “in order to replicate muscle and tendon functions.”
Frasure, himself, wears the new technology. When he was 19, he and about a dozen other young men at N.C. State University decided to do some freight train hopping on the campus.
“I just slipped as I was trying to jump onto a train,” he said. He lost his left foot and the toes on his right foot when the train ran over them.
Frasure had plans to run that year in track and field at the university. About nine months later, he was fitted with a prosthetic and he began competing in 1994, about 18 months after the accident.
He placed third, sprinting in the 100-meter and 200-meter races and won the javelin competition, he said.
“It led, eventually, to 15 years of competing,” he said.
Frasure broke the world record at the Paralympic Games in Sydney, Australia, in the 100-meter race in 1999 and the 200-meter race in 2000.
Retired from his running career, he became a certified prosthetist after one of his sponsor companies asked him to work for them.
Today, he works for iwalk and wears the same type device he was fitting for Johnson.
“One of the neatest things to me,” Paul Sugg, president of EastPoint, said, “is that you don’t even notice Brian’s got one.”
Frasure was helping Sugg and John Clarke, a certified prosthetist/orthotist at EastPoint, to be certified fitters of the new prosthetic.
“Functionally,” Frasure said, “they’re pretty close to what a normal limb would do.”
Each device is customized specifically for the wearer, he said.
Johnson, who was wearing athletic shoes, was interested in knowing whether he could wear a shoe with a heel on it. Frasure told him an adjustment could be made for the heeled shoe and he could wear a wedge when he wore flat-heeled shoes.
Johnson practiced walking between two bars, and then ventured outside to walk in the parking lot, on the grass and on a paved ramp. Previously, he used a walker or a standard prosthetic foot.
He walked at first without battery power, which took more energy. Outside, Frasure and Clarke programmed the 5-pound device using a tablet computer and Johnson was walking easily.
“I don’t think it feels like (a human foot),” he said, “but it’s the closest thing yet.”
Wanda Johnson was elated with the new device. She had helped her husband function for months as he recovered from the accident and saw his anxiety over the loss of his leg.
“I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “Anything that will help him, because this is for life.”
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.