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Amputee ‘Gets His Life Back’
By Miki Fairley  Gary Hooks, winner of the 14th National Amputee
Golf Association (NAGA) National Seniors Invitational Championship
April 11-12, in Tampa, Florida, is a guy who loves life. And losing
a leg below the knee in 1969 didn't change that.
Only 16 at the time, Gary was on his high school basketball and
baseball teams. Six months later, he made the baseball team again.
"I was a pitcher, so I didn't have to do much running," he said.
"At that time, we had hard sockets, 16-18 plies of socks, and waist
belts--it was painful to run. Now with gel liners and such, it's
not a big deal--but there wasn't the technology back then."
Gary also made medical history. He was the first person to
successfully undergo a pure oxygen treatment in a hyperbaric
chamber, a procedure which saved his knee.
As he was riding with his parents in a pickup in Virginia, an
accident nearly cost him his entire leg. In the accident, a
tractor-trailer ran them off the road, then smashed into the side
of the pickup, driving a tree through the door where Gary's legs
were supposed to be. It took rescuers four hours to extricate Gary
from the truck. He lost quite a bit of blood and stopped breathing
a couple of times on the way to the hospital. It took two days for
his condition to stabilize. By then, gaseous gangrene had spread to
his hip, and an orthopedic surgeon wanted to perform a hip
disarticulation. Although his father had suffered a concussion, he
was able to plead with the doctors to save Gary's knee if possible.
(His mother was more severely injured, but both parents later
recovered.)
Gary was then taken to Duke University, Durham, North Carolina,
where he underwent the hyperbaric treatment. His leg was amputated
about four and one-half inches below the knee and the wound was
left wide open with drains installed. Twice a day for five days,
two hours at a time, Gary had a plastic bag taped over his head and
chest and breathed pure oxygen. The oxygen treatment drove the
gangrene out the distal end of his residual limb, thus saving the
knee. "Back then, it was radical; now it's a common practice," Gary
said.
Besides rejoining the baseball team, Gary also played golf
during his senior year in high school. His love of the game
continued and in 1998, he won the National Amputee Golf
Championship. His prosthetist at the time introduced him to Ohio
Willow Wood representatives, who offered him a sponsorship and
products. Ohio Willow Wood had just released its Pathfinder" foot.
Hooks liked the foot, plus he appreciated the sponsorship, since he
did not have insurance to pay for prostheses. "It had been sort of
like car payments--I was paying about $300 a month or so for my
prosthesis," he recalled.
While serving as a patient model for Ohio Willow Wood at a trade
show, Hooks met Carl Caspers, CPO, CEO of TEC Interface Systems,
Waite Park, Minnesota. Caspers, also an amputee, invited Hooks to
Minnesota, where he fitted him with the new TEC VASS (Vacuum
Assisted Socket System)".
Gary was excited about the new system. "It's pretty close to
getting your original leg back," Gary declares. "It's GOOD!"
In fact, Gary was so enthusiastic that in February 2000, he sold
his thriving barbecue restaurant to go to work for TEC. It took
about three months to persuade Caspers and TEC to hire him, he
remembered with a chuckle. "I had played wheelchair sports in the
70s and had played amputee golf, so I knew a huge number of
amputees. But I would only see them at golf tournaments and other
events. I thought if I could just go to work for this company, it
would be a lot faster way to get the word out to them."
He feels that the company's recent acquisition by Otto Bock is a
positive move, since Otto Bock has strong resources for research
and marketing to help Caspers develop more of his innovative
ideas.
Gary has lived in Florida for the last 18 years. Born in
Pennsylvania, he moved with his parents to North Carolina when he
was only six months old. Later, he bought his boyhood home from his
parents when they retired and moved to Florida in 1974. About ten
years later, Gary too came to the Sunshine State. He and his wife
have been married for 17 years and have a 15-year old son. As to
athletic goals for the future, Gary hopes to qualify for some of
the PGA senior events. Being an amputee is no hindrance, he feels.
With the TEC VASS system, "It's like getting your life back," he
says. "From the time I put the leg on in the morning until I take
it off at night, I'm not even aware of being an amputee." 
Table Of Contents - August 2003
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