OVERCOMING HANDICAPS

Overcoming Handicaps ~ 176 ~ OVERCOMING HANDICAPS A dancer from South India, Sudha Chandran, was only sixteen years old when she broke her right leg in an accident on May 2, 1981. She was immediately taken to a local hospital. Without taking the necessary preliminary precautions, such as cleaning her wound and administering anti-tetanus injections, the doctors put her leg in plaster from thigh to toe. As the pain increased, her parents shifted her to a hospital in Madras. When the plaster was stripped off, it transpired that her leg had begun to blacken—a clear indication that infection had reached the bone and gangrene had set in. The doctors did all that they could, but her leg could not be saved. On June 6, 1981, it was amputated three inches below the knee. Sudha’s unbounded love for dancing had not abated. “I want to dance,” she used to cry in anguish. “Will I ever dance again?” She was fitted with a modern artificial leg, known as the “Jaipur foot”. The inventor of this foot, Dr P.K. Sethi, happened to meet Sudha’s teacher, who