Teen amputee continues to dance even after complicated surgery


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HERRIMAN — 17-year-old Tim Wright dances with his peers at Herriman High School. In fact, the dance group there recently took first place in a division competition.

But for this high school junior, grace and dexterity in the art of dance have not come easy. "I had no idea that when they were going to reattach my foot facing backwards, that I would be doing the activities I'm doing today," he told KSL.

In 2011, doctors at Primary Children's Medical Center amputated Tim's left leg just above the knee. He was 12 at the time and fighting to survive Ewing's sarcoma. To give the boy more mobility, orthopedic surgeon Kevin Jones performed a rare but now familiar surgery called rotationplasty. After the leg was removed, Tim's ankle and foot were moved up and reversed. With the foot facing the other way, the rotated ankle became his new knee. It's given Tim amazing mobility over the past five years. "It does as much as a knee because as an ankle joint, it already has movement," he says.

A prosthetic leg slides over the foot like a shoe. Since the skin on the bottom of the foot is designed for rough wear anyway, the fit is comfortable and secure. As we watched, he moved his foot back and forth as other people would do if they were flexing and straightening their own knee. Though it looks a bit bizarre, Tim counters with his own brand of humor. To his friends who see it for the first time, "I'll sometimes make a joke and tell them it was a freak ceiling fan accident that turned it backwards," he tells them.

Cory Wright says his son has come a long way in these five short years. "You look back and see where he was when he was fighting cancer. It was pretty dark, a pretty ugly place. And now, you wouldn't know he's any different than anybody else. It's almost overwhelming when you think about it, that he would come from that place where we honestly didn't know he would survive, let alone have a life."

Amanda Wright says that unusual procedure in 2011 opened all kinds of doors for her son. "I'm so grateful for that surgery and what it's allowed my son to do and become," she says.

And become he has and become he will as Tim now dances to his own music. He glides on a path that for him has no bounds. And it's not just dancing. There's hiking, basketball, water sports and more. He's even modified a bike pedal to give more strength and power to the prosthetic leg when he's out mountain biking.

Cory says his son is not a victim and has never acted like one. "He simply wants to do it no matter what it is."

For Tim, his future trail is set, peppered with a lot of confidence. "I've overcome cancer and losing my leg. So whatever life throws at me, I'm ready to take it," he says. "I have the mindset. You can find your own happiness. You just have to look for it."

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Ed Yeates

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