Progressive O&P’s Dan Bastian using an Ottobock C-Leg
Albertson, New York. Progressive O&P’s own Dan Bastian was featured in a recent New York Post article on the advancement in artificial limbs. The article highlights Dan and four other people with advanced prosthetic limbs showing how their limb loss has not stopped them from enjoying favorite activities or from pursuing their dreams.
Are these artificial limbs better than the real thing?
Daniel Bastian describes himself as a guy who “lives on the water” — frequently boating and diving off docks into the waters off Massapequa on Long Island. The 50-year-old wasn’t going to let losing his leg to bone cancer stop him.
After toying with various simple swap-in, swap-out legs, he turned to the latest development made by German company Ottobock: the X3 waterproof prosthetic leg. It was developed for the Department of Defense, so that ex-soldiers could have more active lives and maybe even return to duty. Not only does it allow Bastian to jump in the water whenever he wants, it contains an accelerometer and gyroscope that use the same technology as a Nintendo Wii or smartphone. He taps his heel a few times and the leg beeps and switches into different modes: a flexible knee for biking or a stiffer leg for swimming.
Bastian says deciding to let his limb be amputated was the best decision he ever made. Now he’s more active than some of his teenage kids’ parents.
“They gave me six months to live 35 years ago,” says Bastian, who founded his own prosthetics company, Progressive Orthotics & Prosthetics in Albertson, LI. “Doctors always want to talk about limb salvage. Having the amputation and moving forward became life salvage for me. With the new prosthetics, it’s just completely life-changing.”