With only 35 days left in his tour in Iraq, Jacques Keeslar lost both legs when a bomb blew up under his gunner?s turret 15 months ago.
Like many returning vets, however, he refused to give up on his passion ? rock climbing with his wife, Vanessa. The 38-year-old Army veteran designed his own specialized foot to help him stick to the rock surface and get him back on the ropes.
“I can?t use my legs as much as I used to,” he said, chalking his hands for the climb ahead. “Normally you use 80 percent legs, 20 percent arms, but I only have one knee. Your arms get smoked a whole lot faster.”
Keeslar demonstrated his new foot, built in part by the Baltimore-based Volunteers for Medical Engineering Inc., Tuesday at the Y of Central Maryland at Stadium Place in Baltimore City. Pointed on one end like a toe and ramped up on the other like the ball of a foot, the rubber-coated metal foot can rotate 360 degrees, but it locks in place once he puts pressure on it.
“He came to us with the design of that particular device. I helped make a produceable version,” said VME founder John Staehlin, a retired Northrop Grumman engineer. “It?s not something you?ll find in any commercially available foot.”
Whether Keeslar wants to put it on the market is up to him, Staehlin said.
That depends on how it fares outdoors, Keeslar said after making two attempts at the Y?s two-story wall. “It went well. It worked exactly the way I wanted it to, but I wasn?t able to use all its potential on an inside wall. I need to get back outside on a real rock to see how it does.”
Rock climbing was a big part of Keeslar?s life before Iraq.
He taught rock climbing at the Northern WarfareTraining Center for more than two years, and the sport led to his 2002 marriage to childhood friend and fellow rock hound Vanessa Keeslar, 37.
“Climbing was a huge part of our life before he was hit,” she said. “I think the ability to climb again takes him out of the fact that he has lost his legs and helps him feel normal again. It?s exciting to watch.”
