News Releases 2008

Dallas Morning News Features The LEGS Program

Mon, Jul 7 2008

LeTourneau University’s LEGS program to provide low-cost prosthetics to amputees in developing countries was featured in a front-page story in The Dallas Morning News Sunday, July 6, 2008, reaching over a half a million newspaper subscribers.

The story was written by Washington-based international correspondent Jim Landers, who traveled to Sierra Leone with LETU biomedical engineering professor Dr. Roger Gonzalez and graduated senior Micah Casteel as they conducted a workshop to teach medical staff from charity organizations there how to make the LEGS prosthetic for
patients.

Dallas Morning News photographer Kye R. Lee documented the trip with images in the newspaper and on the Web site at Dallas Morning News

The workshop in Sierra Leone was designed to provide sustainability to the LEGS program by teaching workers there how to make the prosthetic device after LeTourneau students and faculty return home from the African continent.

"The way to really help is to give them the tools to be independent," Gonzalez was quoted in the story.

The LEGS program began in 2004 when LeTourneau University engineering students under Dr. Gonzalez’ direction, designed a low-cost prosthetic leg with an articulating knee-joint that met international standards yet could be manufactured using rudimentary tools found in developing countries.

LEGS stands for LeTourneau University Engineering Global Solutions and has provided prosthetics and training in Kenya, Bangladesh and Sierra Leone. The program began as part of a senior design program, in which undergraduate engineering students designed, built and tested their prosthetic legs benefiting amputees in the world’s poorest countries. To read more about the LEGS program, go to www.legsresearch.org.

LeTourneau University is an interdenominational Christian university of nearly 4,000 students with academic majors in the aeronautical sciences, business, education, engineering, the liberal arts and sciences. LeTourneau University is located in Longview, Texas, but also offers business degrees and teacher certification programs online
and at education centers in Austin, Bedford, Dallas, Houston and Tyler.

News Articles in Dallas Morning News:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/healthscience/stories/070608dnintamputees.41df6a8.html?nl
 
Video 1:
http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/hp/index.html?nvid=260109
 
Video 2:
http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/nation_world/index.html?nvid=260726&shu=1
 
Photos:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/pt/slideshows/2008/07/pho_070608_amputees

 

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