November Newsletter Vol. 7 Issue 11
Six Israeli Soldiers Receive Prosthetic Care at A Step Ahead
From October 11 to October 21, six Israeli soldiers with limb loss were provided with complete prosthetic care at A Step Ahead Prosthetics. Two captains, one sergeant, and three infantry soldiers came to A Step Ahead after they attended a week long U.S. Paralympics training camp in San Diego, California. The six soldiers came to A Step Ahead through a fundraising effort by Tikvot in Israel and the United States. Tikvot (”hope” in Hebrew) is a non-profit organization based in Israel, which rehabilitates Israel's victims of terror through sport. This project was led by A Step Ahead patient Shlomo Nimrodi (Above Knee), who lost his leg in an Arab-Israeli conflict over thirty years ago. During the soldiers’ nine-day stay in New York, they were provided with six new prostheses, two running prostheses, and two custom braces. In addition to the prosthetic care, the soldiers received instruction in gait training, physical therapy, and advanced gait training and running. Three of the soldiers were also fitted with new bicycles with the assistance of Bike Works in Greenvale, N.Y.
Cate Hughes Wins the Huffington Post “Ultimate Game Changer in Sports” Award!
Junior Team A Step Ahead's Cate Hughes (Below Knee) has won the Huffington Post's "Who is the Ultimate Game Changer in Sports?" award.
| Cate Hughes
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The Huffington Post’s Game Changers series celebrates 100 innovators, visionaries, and leaders in twelve categories who, whether working in the spotlight or under the radar, are changing how we look at the world and the way we live in it. Huffington Post salutes them for their willingness to look at things and take the risk of saying, 'I think I have a better way.'"
Joined by her mentor and Team A Step Ahead director Amy Palmiero-Winters, Cate and her family attended the gala event and ceremony in New York City on October 28. Although there were a number of sports luminaries vying for the same award, two below knee amputees, Catherine Hughes and Amy Palmiero-Winters, were able to prove that disabilities need not be an end to dreams of athletic triumph. They have pushed the envelope and are taking the sport of running to new extremes.  | Cate Hughes and Amy Palmiero-Winters
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Amy Palmiero-Winters Wins the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award & Attends espnW Retreat
On October 12th at the Women’s Sports Foundation’s 31st Annual Salute to Women in Sports awards dinner in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, Amy Palmiero-Winters was presented with the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award for exhibiting great determination and strength in both her professional and personal life. Hosted by founder Billie Jean King and sportscaster and former professional tennis player Mary Carillo, the dinner featured sports fans and champion athletes from Jessica Mendoza and Laila Ali to Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Kwan, all of whom gathered to recognize and honor talented female athletes who, through their accomplishments, have been inspiring role models for girls and women worldwide.
Amy has been spectacular since switching from marathons to ultra-marathons in 2009, and has broken numerous records and accomplished many firsts for amputees in the sport. The Wilma Rudolph Courage Award is the latest honor she has received, following the AAU Sullivan Award and an ESPY award earlier this year.
As part of the celebration, Women’s Sports Foundation CEO Kathryn Olson announced that the foundation has been chosen as the “Official Charity of espnW,” the soon-to-be-launched digital arm of ESPN that will serve, inform and inspire the female athlete and fan. Amy was the only person with a prosthetic invited to an exclusive espnW retreat held from September 30th to October 2nd. The attendees of the retreat were all influential women in sports and included a number of the best female athletes in the world. Held at the Lodge in Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, the two-day retreat featured workshops, discussion groups, and physical activities including surf camp, yoga, and Navy SEAL boot camp.
Amy said of the retreat: "Being a part of the espnW event was groundbreaking in every possible way but most of all it demonstrated the path women will be taking in sports. Getting women and young females active in sports is such an important part of building a strong foundation for living, and not only does espnW emphasize this, it provides a vehicle to help, mentor, and inspire the young and old to believe in themselves and have the courage to follow their dreams. It is a place that leads by example and shows that anything is possible.”
A Step Ahead Donates Prosthetics to Canine Companions for Independence
Sam Cila (Below Elbow) has been working closely with the local New York chapter of Canine Companions for Independence (CCI). Founded in 1975, Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) is a non-profit organization that enhances the lives of people with disabilities by providing highly trained assistance dogs and ongoing support to ensure quality partnerships. Headquartered in Santa Rosa, CA, CCI is the country's largest non-profit provider of assistance dogs, and is recognized worldwide for the excellence of its dogs and the quality and longevity of the matches it makes between dogs and people. The result is a life full of increased independence and loving companionship.
 | Sam Cila, staff, and dogs at Canine Companions for Independence
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A Step Ahead Prosthetics has donated five prosthetic legs and arms to assist CCI in their training of the dogs when they work with patients with limb loss. To read more about CCI and to view a video of Sam and his experience with CCI, go to the following links: Patients in the News
A story on Lee Rottenberg (Above Knee) appeared in the November issue of the magazine Popular Hot Rodding. The story highlights how Lee customized his 1989 Jeep Wrangler as a hot rod car that is still safe for street driving. Lee has been involved in customizing and racing cars since he was fourteen years old.
| Lee Rottenberg
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Kathleen Centore (Below Knee) was featured in a September 25 story in Newsday. The story focuses on Kathleen’s recovery from her below knee amputation in December, 2009. One of her main goals was to return to her home gardening, which she was able to do with guidance from her rehabilitation team. Click here to read the article (requires Adobe Acrobat reader).
Kelly Bruno: Survivor News
On a shocking and memorable sixth episode of Survivor: Nicaragua, Kelly was surprisingly voted off. All of us at A Step Ahead are extremely proud of Kelly and what she was able to accomplish during her stay in Nicaragua. She has led by example not only on the show, but in life as well and has shown all of us what a true survivor is. Kelly played the game and showed the other opponents what she was capable of. Unfortunately the determination she showed convinced her opponents that the best way to deal with her was to get her out of the game quickly. Would she have made it as the final survivor? We like to think so, but in the end, this reality show is a ruthless battle involving both physical ability as well as a survival game of mental skills and trickery.
A new interview has been posted on hitfix.com where Kelly discusses the reasons she was voted off:
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/the-fien-print/posts/hitfix-interview-kelly-bruno-talks-survivor-nicaragua
Community Support for Team A Step Ahead
Bob Harris, owner of Bike Works in Greenvale, New York, has been assisting and supporting Team A Step Ahead triathletes and cyclists for over four years. During that time, Bob has provided extensive support to many Team A Step Ahead athletes across the country and abroad. Most recently, he helped provide bicycles to three Israeli soldiers with limb loss so they can maintain and improve their fitness and conditioning as well as return to the sport of triathlon. We look forward to continuing to work with Bob and Bike Works as well as other supporters of Team A Step Ahead and Junior Team A Step Ahead. Bike Works can found at:
Sam Cila (Below Elbow) completed his first Ironman Triathlon in a time of 13:51:09 at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii on Saturday, October 9. Sam became the eighth Team A Step Ahead athlete to complete the grueling Ironman distance of a 24-mile swim, 112-mike bike and 26.2-mile marathon. The following is Sam’s personal report on his Ironman experience:
“The 2010 Ford Ironman world championships were an epic day! Ground temps were around 100 and the winds were, well - like the winds in Kona, blowing. A perfect day for attacking my first Ironman. Swim - 1:20. Took it easy on the swim, figured I am not racing anyone so why push it. I exited the water relaxed and feeling fired up for the 112-mile bike.”
“Bike - 6:40. Again not my fastest bike, but the mission here is finishing the race. Felt strong the first 100 miles. The last twelve not so much! I think the last twelve took me forty minutes, I was hurting after fighting the winds and heat.”
“Run - 5:20 (if you call that running). I was lucky/unlucky to have NBC sports follow me throughout the race. My first twelve miles I had a motorcycle and film guy next to me while I ran. That forced me to run because I couldn’t let NBC sports see me start crawling. I felt ok running nine or ten minute miles. Then the wheels started to come off, mile thirteen, fourteen, fifteen were the worst. Blisters were making it challenging to run but I walked one min ran ten min until mile twenty-two. Then I could see and hear the finish. I stopped hurting and just ran. The finish was awesome, very intense and almost surreal. It was a good feeling to hear "You are an Ironman," at the world’s biggest race.”
“I could not have completed my mission without A Step Ahead and the team. You guys give me a special weapon - my bike hand! That hand means the most to me; it makes me competitive and lets me attack every challenge! Thank you guys! I was thrilled with Ironman, but I am never satisfied with my last race. I will go back and break twelve hours. That's what's makes us warriors and competitors!”
Jean Draper (Below Knee) ran her first marathon since returning to running with a prosthesis at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Sunday, October 10. Despite an unusually warm day with temperatures near 80 degrees, Jean completed the marathon in 4:48:01, almost thirty minutes faster then the Chicago marathon that she completed prior to her below the knee amputation. The following is Jean’s report on the Chicago marathon:
“On Sunday, 10-10-10, I competed in my first marathon as an amputee. I thought it would be very fitting to run the Chicago Marathon, as I have done one marathon prior to losing my leg and it was Chicago in 2003.”
“Well, here I was, back seven years later, but this time missing part of my right leg. My goal was to finish between 4:08 and 4:15. I was also fortunate enough to have Amy Palmiero-Winters come out and pace me and give me some guidance throughout the course.”
“Things that day got off to a good start. Amy was able to get us moved up from the open wave start to corral start A! This was going to give us a thirty- to forty-five-minute earlier start. The weather forecast that day was less than favorable. At the start that morning it was already sixty-three degrees.”
“Things seem to be going along pretty well. At the half-marathon mark we were a little ahead of schedule and I didn’t have to reboot the leg until the halfway mark (this was a first!) The second half of the race although did not go as smoothly. I was able to hold on strong up until mile eighteen or so and then I started to fall apart a bit. My sound leg started to cramp up and the heat started to get to me. The last six miles seemed to really warm up as the temperature got up to mid 80’s. I had to stop often to get water, ice, and reboot. Amy got me through to the end and while I did not end up with my goal time of a 4:08-4:15, I did beat my previous marathon time back in 2003 (when I had 2 legs) by thirty-two minutes. I ended up with a finish time of 4:48.”
“The whole experience was amazing!! This by far has been my hardest race or event I have done since my amputation. Since things didn’t play out the way I had hoped in terms of time and weather, I am even more motivated to go out and do another one in the very near future!!! One of these days I know I will accomplish that goal and I am thrilled to say I have done one now as amputee and seemed to be a little less intimidated!”
On October 3, fifty-six-year-old Dr. Jack Ahrens (Below-Knee) competed in the Bassman Fall Half-Distance Duathlon in New Jersey. Jack completed the 3.1-mile run, 58-mile bike, and 13.2 mile run in six hours and twelve minutes
Challenged Athletes Foundation San Diego Triathlon Challenge
James Mauldin (Bilateral Below knee), Kelly Bruno (Below Knee), Jean Draper (Below Knee), Nick Roumonada (Below Knee), Sandy Dukat (Above Knee), and Amy Palmiero-Winters (Below Knee) traveled to the Challenged Athletes San Diego Triathlon Challenge weekend. The entire weekend of events - from the annual awards dinner to the sports clinic to the race venue - made for a very memorable event for all as athletes and as a team.
 | Nick Roumonada, Sandy Dukat, Kelly Bruno, James Mauldin, Jean Draper
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Our youngest athlete at the event this weekend, James Mauldin, will remember his San Diego Triathlon Challenge for a very long time to come. James ran his first half marathon accompanied by team athlete Kelly Bruno and Amy Palmiero-Winters. We know first hand he will be remember this as a benchmark in his young athletic career. On the flight back to New York, James glowed with pride when he talked about his achievement and discussed how he could create a training plan of running, weight training and proper nutrition so he would perform even better next time - not to mention that this now gives him bragging rights over his teammates on his high school cross country team who can only run five miles!
Jean Draper was presented with a new Ellsworth triathlon bike on behalf of the Challenged Athletes Foundation. This will help make a difference in her training and racing, but most importantly, it will help her reach her goals as an athlete.
Amy Palmiero-Winters was honored with the Sempra Energy Trail Blazer Award. "To me the most important thing I can do as an athlete is help others. Helping children and adults, by example and by teaching them how to find the love of a sport is what it’s all about. As a team we were able to participate in all of the CAF SDTC events and make a difference"
Upcoming Events
Nick Roumonada (Below Knee) and Ben Simmons (Above Knee) will be running the ING N.Y.C. Marathon on Sunday, November 7. This will be Nick’s first marathon after competing in many shorter-distance road races and trail runs.
For the third year in a row, Junior Team A Step Ahead will be assisting at the PowerBar Aide station at the New York City Marathon on Sunday, November 7.
Jeff Glasbrenner (Below Knee) has three more Ironman Triathlons to complete this year in his series of eight. The final three are IM Florida on November 6, IM Arizona on November 21, and IM Cozumel on November 28.
Tommy Koehler (Below Knee) completes his return to triathlons after his late-winter mountain biking injuries at Ironman Arizona on November 21.
The ASPIRE Support Group meetings are on the last Wednesday of each month at 6:30pm at the Hospital for Special Surgery located at 535 East 70th Street, NY. For more information about the ASPIRE support group meetings, contact Charlie Steele at charlieatl@aol.com or (212) 877-7050.
New York-Presbyterian Hospital Amputee Education and Support Group every first Friday of the Month 10:00-12:00 PM. Milstein Hospital 8 Garden North Dayroom (8th floor rehab unit) Milstein Hospital Building 177 Fort Washington Ave. For more information contact Sharon Clark at 212-305-3964
Rusk Rehab Amputee Support Group (34th Street/1st avenue) meets the last Thursday of each month at 6:00 PM. For more information about the Rusk Rehab Support Group contact Dr. Jeff Heckman at 631-873-6223 or by email at: jtheckman@yahoo.com
The Long Island Amputee Support Group meets the first Saturday of each month at South Side Hospital, 301 East Main Street in Bayshore. Contact Jodi Adler at 631-968-3330. |
