Innovation for a cause

Nic Garcia
ngarci20@mscd.edu

Bryan Anderson has three broken hands. Two of his legs are broken. And another two are missing.

Anderson, a triple amputee and Iraq War veteran, is as independent as they come. He lives life on his own terms. Neither the Iraqi insurgents nor the roadside bomb that claimed both of his physical legs and his left hand can hinder his sprit. Perhaps the only thing that can stop him now is technology, or the lack there of.

An avid skate- and snowboarder, wear and tare come natural to his prosthetics. But with the help of student’s in Metro’s industrial design department, he could one day take advantage of improved technology.

Students in assistant professor of industrial design John Wanberg class will be working all semester long to research, develop and create new products for Pride Mobility: products that could make life easier for people, like Anderson, with disabilities.

Anderson graduated from a Chicago high school and took a job with American Airlines in 2000. He was 19. Anderson soon found himself living a mundane life. He said he’d wake-up, go to the same job, go to the same pool hall with the same friends afterward.

“There was no variety,” he said.

He looked at his options and decided the military would be his best option. Anderson could keep his job and return when his duty was over as if he never left. He enlisted on April 26, 2001.

Anderson was scheduled to ship out on Sept. 11, 2001. That morning he, along with the rest of America, woke up to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. One word kept running through his mind: fuck.

It was the fear of the unknown that got Anderson. “It wasn’t about explosions or war,” he said. “But how we were going to live.”

Anderson spent the next year in basic training. In 2003 he was told he was going to Iraq.

Anderson’s first tour lasted about a year. As a military officer he helped capture dozens of high-ranking Iraqi officials wanted by the United States. He returned to the states thinking he and his comrades were safe from harms way.

But eight months later he was ordered back — this time things weren’t so easy.

“We didn’t get it … it was more dangerous,” Anderson said.

Roadside bombs and suicide bombers became apart of daily life, Anderson said. In one day as many as 60 roadside bombs made by Iraqi insurgencies would go off in one six-mile radius.

“We had always gotten lucky,” Anderson said.

On Oct. 23, 2005, his luck ran out.

While driving doing a round of security checks Anderson lit a cigarette. He took his first drag and a roadside bomb exploded. His legs and left arm were blown off. So was apart of his right forearm. Half of his tattoo of a black widow spider remains. He lost the top of his right index finger. He was awake during the entire experience.

His fellow officers pulled him out of the truck in about 30 seconds, Anderson said. Flies flocked to Andersons face as if it were covered with manure. Instead blood covered his face. He tried to brush the flies off with his left hand, but only an empty sleeve brushed his face. The soldiers surrounding wore masks of agony. Anderson looked down and saw the remaining four inches of his legs.

“Do you ever think I’m gonna get laid again?” Anderson joked with the soldiers.

He passed out in a helicopter ride back to his base in Baghdad. He woke up seven days later at Walter Reed Army Hospital.

Anderson’s prosthetic left hand is an aged, yellow-green. His rubber thumb is ripped from using a manual wheel chair. His right hand is rough. His fingernails are brittle and unkept. The base of that thumb is inked. Green shorts swallow his stubs. His smile is wide and his hair is black with a pink highlight.

After 13 months of rehabilitation, Anderson received extensive coverage in the media. It was his cover story in Esquire that caught the attention of Dick McLane of Pride Mobility. After speaking with Anderson, McLane asked him to be the Quantum’s spokesman. Anderson was using a wheel chair by Quantum at the time.

Since than Anderson has been traveling across the country pitching their products, educating the public about living with disabilities and encouraging people to live their lives to the fullest.

“There is still a lot of awareness that needs to be raised about people with disabilities,” McLane said.

Quantum takes care of most of his needs. Anderson gets to test new equipment and any repairs needed to his are taken care of. His prosthetics are made by a different company.

Anderson has no regrets and has never pondered the existential “why me.” He neither damns the day he was blown up nor takes advantage of his work with Quantum.

But there are still struggles. Prosthetic legs are heavy — it takes about 500 percent more energy for Anderson to walk — and cause rashes and wheel chairs, both powered and manual, could be more comfortable and fashionable.

Col Jones, director of product design for Pride said his company is not looking for the next great invention or protype, but rather to foster imagination and engage with the next generation of designers, students in Metro’s industrial design department.

“This is as close to real world experience as we can get,” Wangberg said. “This is better than anything we (professors) can come up with ourselves.”

The school will grade the products but Pride will review all submissions. The participating students will own all the rights to their designs and products, Jones said.

“The end result is not why we’re here,” Jones said. “We’re looking forward to a lot of inspiration.”

Pride produces items such as wheel chairs, both powered and manual, scooters, lifting devices and ramps.

Kate Bonczek a Metro industrial design senior said she’s looking forward to the project for two reasons. First she was inspired by Anderson and second for the real world experience.

Anderson spoke to Bonczek’s class and a crowd at the Tivoli Turnhalle Feb. 9.

“This is everything I want to do,” she said. “It will be a challenge to come up with something new.”

She said she’ll be working around the concept of the a manual wheel chair.

Kristen Nelson, also a Metro senior in the industrial design program, echoed Bonczek. She said she is excited to create a product for Anderson. She said she will incorporate his active lifestyle and come up with a more durable wheel chair.

Nelson said she has always wanted to make products to help make people’s lives easier.

Anderson said he has a pretty cool life. “I do all sorts of crazy things, I’ve got to meet cool people. I don’t know how you can’t have fun doing what I do.”

In the last few years he’s guest stared on All My Children and CSI: NY. He shares a scene with Golden Globe winner Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler and he’s working on a new movie.

He’s happy equally happy about the small things: “I don’t have to worry about cutting my toe nails anymore.”

“I don’t see this as a tragedy,” he said. “I different, there is nothing about me that is handicapped.”