Seattle doctor climbs mountains to raise funds for artificial limbs

One leg was made of a shell casing wrapped around a metal block. Another was green plastic pipe and pieces of bamboo. A third, made in Vietnam, was made of hard rubber.

The makeshift prosthetic legs resting on a conference table in the Seattle office of the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation each could tell a story of a life without a limb and making do with anything that would restore mobility.

"The ones I see most often in the emergency room are like that," said Tom Boyer, an emergency-room physician at Swedish Medical Center/Issaquah, pointing to the one made in Vietnam.

Also a mountaineer, Boyer knows the value of strong legs and arms and how prosthetics can restore confidence as well as mobility, especially in Third World countries where amputated limbs can often mean life as a beggar.

Just two weeks ago, Boyer stood on the summit of Mount Elbrus in Russia, one pocket holding a photo of a young Vietnamese girl with a clubfoot.

Now he's climbing Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro, hoping that his "Walk on Top," as his fundraiser is called, will encourage others to support the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation's mission.

While many mountaineers seek summits simply for the personal glory, Boyer volunteered to turn his personal quest to climb the world's famed Seven Summits — the highest peaks on seven continents — into a benefit for those whose personal summits are performing the daily tasks of living without properly functioning limbs.

Before Boyer left Seattle several weeks ago for Elbrus, he began drumming up contributions for the foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit that provides prosthetic limbs and training to doctors in Third World countries.

In the photo that accompanied Boyer to the summit of Elbrus, the little girl, Lo Thi Phuong, smiles broadly as she perches on a bed, her leg in a cast after foundation-trained doctors corrected her clubfoot, making it possible for her to walk normally.

Raising funds through climbing is "a way to help people in a different way than I usually do," said Boyer, 38, who is financing the costly climbs himself and hopes to raise $150,000 for the foundation.

Typically, amputees in poor countries end up using whatever is available to make prosthetics — even old shell casings, said Fred Jacobs, the foundation's development director.

Different countries, different climates, different histories all mean developing different prosthetics, he said.

In Vietnam, missing legs among the older generation who lived through the war are common. But the prosthetic legs made for use in the U.S. won't hold up in a humid climate like Vietnam, where a heavy rubber foot is needed, Jacobs said.

In regions where climbing hills is part of the daily routine, a prosthetic will be designed with a ball-shaped "foot."

In countries such as Sierra Leone, it's not prosthetic legs but hands and arms that are usually needed. It's common to find residents who lost hands and arms in attacks by Liberia-supported rebels, who wanted to discourage those in Sierra Leone from voting.

The foundation was started in 1989 by the late Seattle orthopedic surgeon Ernest M. Burgess, inventor of a prosthetic limb that became the gold standard for World War II amputees. At the time, the U.S. still had no diplomatic relations with Vietnam, and Burgess began working with that country to provide limbs that would transform the lives of amputees, and pouring the royalties from his invention into the foundation.

Since then, the foundation has fitted 14,000 amputees worldwide with artificial limbs, Jacobs said.

A nature kid

In between climbs, Boyer will return to Swedish to work. He expects to complete the climbs in October 2009.

Boyer, who lives on Queen Anne Hill in a house filled with photos and posters of his outdoor adventures, grew up in rural Oregon, a nature kid who loved the woods and mountains. He's relatively new to climbing, having just this past year climbed mounts Baker, Rainier, Adams and McKinley in Alaska, the last to scatter the ashes of his beloved Great Dane, Denali.

For mountaineers, the Seven Summits climb is a lofty goal first attained in the 1980s. The American climber Dick Bass is credited with inventing the idea of the Seven Summits and for having been first to climb seven peaks, but there is debate over which mountains should constitute the seven. Some say Australia's Mount Kosciuszko should be included. But others say Australia is part of the continent of Australasia, which includes Indonesia's Mount Carstensz, which is taller.

Eight peaks targeted

Eighty-seven people have achieved the Seven Summit goal. Boyer plans to climb both Carstensz and Kosciuszko, making his Seven Summits actually eight, with Everest in Asia, Aconcagua in South America, Vinson in Antarctica, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro and McKinley.

Each climb has different requirements. Some are more technical than others. He's making the climbs as an individual, but some will require being part of a team, and that typically will be part of the arrangement with the guide service he uses.

In between climbs he plans on visiting Vietnam, where the majority of the foundation's work has been done.

"Being mobile and athletic is dear to me," he said. "When I think of people who have that taken away from them ... If there is any way I can help one person become more mobile, I'm happy to bear that weight."

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com