His heel shattered when he stepped on a landmine

Ryan Blanck, a prosthetist and developer of the Intrepid Dynamic Exoskeletal Orthosis brace, fits one of his braces on Army 1st Lt. Matthew Anderson, an infantry platoon leader, at the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, Nov. 10, 2011. Anderson's heel shattered when he stepped on a landmine in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in October 2010. The brace reduces his pain and enables him to run again.Blanck now is fitting troops from around the country with his device. After hearing of Blanck's and Owens' success, Army 1st Lt. Matthew Anderson traveled here from his unit at Fort Carson, Colo., hoping for similar results.




DOD photo by Linda Hosek