Entepreneur Creates Prosthetic Invention for Personal Reasons
In 1976, when Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee sprinter from South Africa, was 21, his left leg was severed below the knee in a water-skiing accident. At the hospital, he was measured for a pink wood-and-rubber leg and sent home. A former athlete, Phillips said it felt “like a sentence from hell.”
Phillips said he became obsessed with creating a better prosthetic leg. When he was a student at the Northwestern University Medical School Prosthetic-Orthotic Center, professors discouraged him from challenging the status quo, he said. He learned that the artificial limb industry had changed little since World War II and the Korean War. Most prosthetics were designed within the cosmetic envelope — a prosthetic foot resembled the human foot. There was no energy to propel a leg.
Borrowing concepts from pole vaulting, the spring of a diving board and the C shape of a Chinese sword his father owned, Phillips imagined a prosthetic that would let him jump and land. The day after Phillips first ran down a hallway wearing his invention, he quit his job, found partners and started a company, turning his basement into a lab. He would make a leg, break it and refine it, churning out 100 legs in two years.
In 2000, Phillips sold his business to Ossur, a prosthetic and orthotic company based in Iceland, which continues to sell the Cheetah and other Phillips designs. Its chief executive, Jon Sigurdsson, called Phillips “a visionary, whose ideas and progressive techniques are central to our heritage.”
Image via Iht
cassy on July 6th, 2008 12:21 am
What a great invention! He invent a leg that can walk at the some time can jump.
I like Phillip, for really giving his time and effort to help his friend to walk again and at the same time have profit in his invention.
Angelice on July 7th, 2008 8:19 am
I am very inspired by this article. Thank you so much for sharing! It is great to see this continue to grow and help others in need of this type of help.
Angela on July 7th, 2008 2:12 pm
That’s a very inspiring idea and business he had created. It’s great how he was able to do something about his own situation and help so many others as well.
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