Tom Whittaker’s prosthesis – summary

List-members,

here is a summary of responses to my earlier request

for details regarding Tom Whittaker’s climbing prosthesis.

Thanks to

Ted A. Trower ,

Jerry Nelson , and

Steve Childs

for their responses.

Mr Whittaker has a Syme amputation. The socket of his

prosthesis looks like a carbon-fibre single-piece socket.

The footpiece is a Flex-Foot Syme foot, with a crampon

directly integrated into it. [The Flex-Foot Syme mounts

on the posterior of the socket, and should not be confused

with the low-profile Flex-Foot.] The prosthesis weighs 2

pounds (just under 1 kilogram). Wayne Wilkerson, SCOPE,

San Diego, has made silicone liners for Mr. Whittaker, but

I do not know if they are part of his climbing prosthesis.

People Weekly magazine of May 11th 1998 has some

pictures of Mr. Whittaker with different models of his

prosthesis. It looks like the inner liner of the climbing

version covers the entire residual limb.

I initially asked my question because I was curious to

know what adaptations had been made for the extreme

cold of high-altitude mountaineering. Reduced circulation

to the extremities must be a problem, and I would think

this would increase the risk of skin breakdown, especially

on long climbing days such as summit day. I have not been

able to find any information addressing this in the public

domain. From various pictures, it would seem that the

inner liner provides sufficient insulation from the cold.

Sorry for the delay in this summary – it took me some time

to track down a copy of People Weekly.

If you have got this far, you may be interested in visiting

http://www.televar.com/~pcr/pcr1.htm

Pete Rieke, a paraplegic, is attempting to reach the summit

of 14,411-foot Mt. Rainier on a hand-cranked snow-cat-like

vehicle. He is currently at about 11,000 feet, 5,500 feet into

his 9000-foot climb. He estimates that the next 3,500 feet

will take him another two to three days.

Congratulations to the practitioners and engineers who

make such feats possible.

Santosh Zachariah

Department of Bioengineering

University of Washington, Seattle.