Amputee Afghanistan Veteran Running Boston-Strong

Army veteran who lost entire left leg in Afghanistan combat plans to run in Boston Marathon
By LARRY LARUE
The News Tribune
April 14, 2014

TACOMA, Washington — The first six times Edward Lychik told his physical therapist he wanted to run again, she was noncommittal, and with good reason.

The combat veteran's left leg had been amputated at the hip socket, and doctors had told him if he walked again, it would be on crutches.

Lychik ignored that diagnosis and kept talking to his physical therapist, Alicia White.

"The seventh time he said he wanted to run, I went in to see our prosthetist and said, 'We've got a problem," White said. "No one with this kind of amputation had ever run before, not like Edward wanted to run.

"We were still coming up with a walking leg, and he wanted to run mountain trails. He was talking about a marathon!"

An Army combat engineer at the age of 20, Lychik turned 21 in Afghanistan on a day that changed his life.

"I was riding in the back of our group and I was shot by a recoilless rifle," Lychik said. "The medic in the same vehicle, 'Doc' Padgett, saved my life, got tourniquets on both my legs so I didn't bleed to death. He did it with one hand wounded by shrapnel.

"I'd been through two explosions there already, had my one-man vehicle blown up. So I thought I knew what had happened. At one point I touched my left leg and thought I felt bone, and someone pulled my hand away and said 'Don't do that.'
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