Amputee Afghanistan Veteran Went From Crutches to Running NY Marathon

Defying the odds: US Army veteran with above-the-knee amputation to run NYC Marathon
FoxNews.com
By Melinda Carstensen
Published November 01, 2014

Today, Lychik has proved his doctors— and even himself in the early hours after his injury— wrong. Today, Lychik doesn’t just walk. He runs.

United States Army veteran Edward Lychik joined the military because he wanted to be part of something bigger than himself. But on his 21st birthday, while serving in Afghanistan as a combat engineer, he faced a horrific reality of war that prompted him to rethink his life mission entirely.

On Sept. 30, 2011, about a year into his deployment, Lychik was sitting in the gunner’s hatch of a tank when a rocket struck his vehicle. Lychik remembers feeling a dry thirst in his throat as black smoke engulfed the unit, seeing fire in the background, and reaching down to his left leg, which felt mushy on his fingertips.

“My friend immediately pulled it away and said, ‘You don’t want to do that,’” Lychik, now 24, told FoxNews.com. “They put me on a stretcher and in a vehicle, and that’s when I knew something was wrong.”

Lychik lost most of his left leg in the attack, which doctors later amputated above the knee. Gone were his knee joint, ankle joint and hip joint on that side of his body after undergoing a procedure called hip disarticulation. His medical team said the only way he would be able to walk again was with crutches and assistance.
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