First steps for Marine after the blast

The Marine lies on his side in the military hospital, his wheelchair parked nearby, waiting to be cast for his first pair of legs. The prosthetist dips strips of fabric coated in plaster into a bucket of warm water, then smooths them over thin pants covering Sgt. Collin Raaz’s battle-scarred thighs.

Almost four months earlier, on June 15th, the 25-year-old scout sniper lost both legs above the knee after an insurgent bomb explosion in Afghanistan.

For partial leg amputations like his, prosthetists and technicians at San Diego Naval Medical Center take molds of the residual limbs and use them to make plastic sockets that fit over the thighs.

Brian Zalewski, Raaz’s prosthetist, prefers to cast the sockets using his hands instead of a three-dimensional computer scanner. Bomb blasts cause uneven amputations bulging with scar tissue in places and sunken with voids of flesh in others. Sometimes bone grows out of control, floating in soft tissues where it can press sharply against the prosthetic socket.

“Because of all the debris from the blast, the limbs can be full of pieces of metal or fragments of bone. A lot of times they don’t come to the surface right away,” Zalewski says. “When we get our hands on them, we can feel the mass.”

Prosthetic staffers custom shape each socket. They make windows to relieve pressure on obtrusions and ensure the overall fit distributes weight evenly across the limb.

When the plaster sets, Zalewski pops the mold off. It makes a sucking sound — a good sign for a snug fit. About a week later, in early October, Zalewski carries two short prosthetic legs out of the lab and shows them to Raaz.

The thigh sockets are connected to straight pylons about 6 inches tall, ending in small square metal foot pads.

Raaz must work with the “stubbies” before getting full-height prosthetic legs. The wounds on his thighs need to toughen, his balance improve and his muscles harden, so he can walk for longer stretches.

Usually patients spend about a month in the short legs. Raaz wants to beat that average.

He pulls silicone gel liners over his thighs for cushion, tugs the sockets on and stands at the parallel bars, while his mother, Julie Raaz, takes a video with her iPad.

This is the first time he has stood upright since he was wounded.

It feels strange, but good. His balance is off, the hard sockets pinch a bit and his thigh muscles strain to bear his weight. “Hopefully I won’t faceplant,” he says.