The Walking Inspiration: Craig DeMartino

Craig DeMartino looks like all the other cheerful fathers spending a family weekend on the slopes in Winter Park, Colorado. But for him, trying to walk steadily in boots poses an extra challenge. Where his right leg should be, he has carbon fiber, plugged into a steel-and-titanium skiing foot.

In 2002, DeMartino was 96 feet up a cliff, about to begin a rock climb. He heard his climbing partner shout that their safety gear was anchored. But he heard wrong. As he kicked back from the cliff face, his rope slipped through its hook, and he plummeted to the rocks below.

Upon impact—foot first on granite—his boot soles exploded, and his feet and ankles shattered. A powerful shock wave moved up his body, snapping his back and neck. The fall also punctured a lung and tore his shoulder.

He survived, but doctors fused his spine to prevent it from collapsing, and he is always in pain. He can barely feel his left foot, so when he walks, he has to look down to make sure he's on solid ground. His right leg was a lost cause—a year and a half after the fall, it had to be amputated below the knee.

Still, DeMartino says some parts of his life are better. Before, he was focused on his ambitions as a professional photographer and climber. After his accident, he began to invest in helping other survivors be physically active. "The accident took climbing away, and I thought, 'Who am I now?' I didn't want to be the handicapped guy." Fewer than half of amputees are physically active, but he was determined to change those statistics. He has a prosthetic skiing foot that doubles for cycling. Another, designed to be wedged into crevices, works for climbing. "It's huge for people to see me climbing, cycling or skiing," says DeMartino. "They see the reality." He's now on call for other accident victims in the Denver area, helping them understand what to expect.

Since he can't predict day by day how well he'll feel, he's learned to focus on what he can accomplish immediately, which means he thinks more about what he has, and less about what he plans for the future. "I used to plan years in advance," he says. "Now I plan what I'm having for lunch."