Double Bk Amputee Learn to Walk Again

If y'all spend any time at all around sailors you lot'll hear the saying, "One hand for yourself, and one for the ship."

But what if you merely take one manus?

"Take it slow, and use a lot of duct tape," answers Dustin Reynolds, a 41-year-onetime double amputee currently more halfway through a solo circumnavigation of the world. As well, he adds with a laugh: "Don't listen to the old guys at the bar, because they'll tell you a million reasons why you lot shouldn't go."

That wasn't a bulletin Reynolds wanted to hear as he rebuilt his life afterward a drunk driver swerved into his lane early ane Sabbatum morning on the big island of Hawaii. The touch on knocked Reynolds off his motorbike, crushed his left leg and sheared his left arm off at the shoulder.

When Reynolds came to, he thought that he'd avoided the oncoming truck. Then he tried to remove his helmet. "I couldn't figure out why my other manus wasn't helping," he recalls. "I reached over and I grabbed this wet encarmine stump, and that's when I realized what happened."

He yelled for assist, just there was no 1 at the scene. The truck that hitting him had rolled another 600 yards downwardly the route and into a ditch. Reynolds reached for his phone, keyed 9-1-1—and hesitated.

"I only started thinking virtually the challenges that are coming up, and I questioned whether I really actually wanted to hit transport on the phone," he says. "I wasn't really in any pain, but I had this realization of what happened and I wasn't certain if I wanted to all the same alive as a handicapped person, a disabled person.

"This whole thought process probably took 30 seconds, and so I striking transport."

In the hospital, doctors hardly knew where to outset. Reynolds' internal bleeding was so extensive that a CT scan couldn't make up one's mind where it was coming from. A doctor told him his chances of survival were slim, and gave him a pick. "He told me, 'Do y'all want to spend your last few hours with your friends or practice you desire to attempt to go in for surgery?'" Reynolds says. "And I told him, 'I fabricated this decision when I chosen y'all guys. I'g going to live.'"

He was released from the hospital 17 days after, minus his left arm and left leg below the knee. He couldn't work for three years, and the portion of his medical bills his insurance didn't cover amounted to more than $440,000. Around the time Reynolds' own insurance company sued him into bankruptcy (Blue Shield, if yous're wondering) he stumbled beyond the website of the Joshua Slocum Society.

Reynolds underway aboard Rudis, the 1968 Alberg sloop he bought for $12,000 and sailed halfway around the world. Courtesy Dustin Reynolds

"Information technology was all people who set up records sailing around the world by themselves," he says. "I idea, 'At that place's no double amputee on that listing. I'one thousand merely gonna go do that. And then I sold my two businesses and I bought a 46-year-old sailboat for $12,000."

Reynolds didn't know how to sheet. He didn't even know anyone who knew how to sail. He learned from YouTube and books, spent a month sailing effectually Hawaii and and so prepare off to go the first double amputee to sail lone effectually the world.

He didn't accept a long-range radio, satellite phone or weather reports. When his motor quit in Fiji he sailed without it for a year. He was boarded in the Solomons, about dismasted in Indonesia, becalmed in Sumatra. In Thailand he finally sold the 46-year-erstwhile boat, put out a GoFundMe and bought a 34-year-erstwhile boat. He sailed it across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and across the Atlantic. Nosotros spoke to him concluding week simply after he dropped the claw in Bequia in the southern Caribbean, nigh three-quarters of the way effectually the globe from Hawaii.

Adventure Journal: Twelve grand is a bargain for an oceangoing sailboat. Tell me about Rudis.
Dustin Reynolds: It was a 1968 Alberg 35, and the person I bought information technology from had but done a vii-year circumnavigation on it. Information technology'south a really good seaworthy boat, but he ran out of coin and didn't maintain it that well. The very first time I lifted the mainsail, it ripped in half.

I spent a twelvemonth working on it and the gunkhole actually performed really well until I got to Fiji. Then information technology just started getting engine and manual problems, and so I ended upward sailing through three countries with no engine.

You started the trip without any long-range communications. That's pretty rare for anyone, let alone an inexperienced sailor in a $12,000 boat.

I did take an EPIRB [Emergency Position Indicating Rescue Beacon], so if I sank the gunkhole and concluded upwardly in the life raft somebody would know. But once I left Hawaii I had no two-mode communications and no atmospheric condition reports. It wasn't until I got to Fiji that I did a yacht delivery and the owner of the boat bought me a Garmin InReach, and that's what I use now for my communication. I become weather reports off of that, 160 characters at a time.

Reynolds going to windward on his second boat, a Bristol 35.v called Tiama. Courtesy Dustin Reynolds

Fiji is as well where your engine went out. And so you went from sailing without communications gear to sailing without an engine. How did that alter your approach?
I was never worried if the motor went out, considering I knew I could notwithstanding sail. Just then I left Republic of indonesia four times and got towed back in three. The tertiary time out of Bali, my forestay came down and if there was more than than five knots of wind I could take easily been dismasted. That was the first time I actually got spooked considering my engine wasn't working.

I wanted to stop in Kalimantan and become see the orangutans and and then go across the Singapore Strait and Malacca Strait. But without an engine I didn't want to risk information technology. The Singapore Strait is 1 of the busiest aircraft channels of the world and I didn't want to play Frogger with no engine. So I went out to Java and all the mode effectually Sumatra to Malaysia. It took me 24 days to go 900 miles. I got becalmed in the South Java Sea for 12 days.

Nigh sailors these days wouldn't dream of sailing that way, and here you are doing it with ane arm and one leg.
Aye. I mean, a lot of that was finances. I didn't accept enough coin to buy all that stuff. But overall the boat was prophylactic. I mean, somebody sunk it but it wasn't me [laughs].

Was that after you lot sold it?
Yes, and it was pure negligence on his behalf. The chances of me going down were almost zero.

The boat isn't the only thing that needs steady maintenance. Courtesy Dustin Reynolds

The old crewman'south mantra is one paw for yourself, and one for the ship. How exercise you manage with just one paw to become around?
I tether myself whenever I exit the cockpit. Other than that, I just use my teeth equally my other mitt. Things I have to do, I'll use my teeth or my toes to effort to brand things piece of work. People are always asking questions similar, what'south the near difficult thing? In that location'due south nothing really specific. I mean, my oil filter would exist a lot easier to modify if I had a left hand.

You must have had a few close calls.
I got boarded in the Solomon Islands. People came on lath at dark trying to steal stuff off the boat, and I was able to scare them off. I just put a spotlight on them and told them I have a gun. I don't have a gun.

I was up all nighttime keeping watch, and and so my engine wasn't working so I had to wait until about 10 in the morn to canvas off the anchor considering I had to wait till I got plenty solar power to use the anchor puller. Then I sail off the anchor and I'thousand tacking all solar day trying to get out of the lagoon, and it starts getting night. And I didn't brand it. Then I had to plough effectually and sail back to where I got boarded and then try to do information technology again the next twenty-four hour period. It made me nervous because I just told these guys I have a gun, which would be quite valuable for them to come back for. And then what am I going to say? 'No, only kidding. I don't take a gun.'

What about conditions? You tin't sail three-quarters of the way around the world without dealing with weather, can you?
I had one storm in detail going into American Samoa. It's something that wouldn't hitting me today, because now I take atmospheric condition prediction and I know more. When the merchandise winds die that unremarkably means a storm is coming. Just I didn't know that at the time so I just waited for the air current to come dorsum. I was only about 100 miles from American Samoa and this was earlier my motor went out, then I could have just motored in, but I was in no hurry and only sat out there waiting so got hit by the storm.

I was out there weathering the tempest for ii days. At outset I put a drogue out and merely let the gunkhole drift, simply it was pushing me toward land, so I had to get the drogue back in and put the storm jib upwards to sail away from the island. That was 1 of the more difficult things I call up I've ever washed.

A former commercial diver and avid freediver, Reynolds has enjoyed diving all over the earth. Courtesy Dustin Reynolds

You're describing a mode of sailing that near people would dismiss as too risky, even with a crew of athletic sailors. You lot're doing it single-handed—literally, I judge, with ane hand, one leg, no motor and minimal communications gear. Did your accident modify the amount of risk you're willing to accept?
To exist honest, when I started the trip was the only matter that I had. I'd sold my businesses, and with the corporeality of coin that I was making off Social Security, I would merely exist in extreme poverty if I was living in the United States. So I really didn't have anything to autumn back on.

As far every bit taking risks, I don't know. I was e'er pretty gutsy and a scrap of an adrenaline junkie. I don't really fifty-fifty like sailing that much, but I love the lifestyle, and fifty-fifty with my express funds and now due to crowdfunding, I live pretty well.

Exercise you e'er recall where you'd be if the accident didn't ready y'all on this trajectory?
I'd probably yet exist cleaning carpets and angling in Hawaii. I told my dad this right after the accident, because my dad was obviously angry, and I just wanted to calm him down. I told him that I'll never know if this happening to me will exist a good or bad thing in my life. My life has manifestly changed, but doesn't necessarily take to alter for the worse.

I loved my life before. I loved living in Hawaii. I loved having my motorbike and my line-fishing gunkhole, and I enjoyed the jobs that I did. So I was happy then and I'grand happy now. But this is a pretty special affair. I love this lifestyle, and in that location's almost no way I would've committed to this with what I had before. And if I was doing this with both of my limbs, I probably wouldn't take gotten the crowd funding heave that I got. And if I'd tried to do the crowd funding earlier I'd already sailed halfway around the world for 2 years, it probably wouldn't accept done well either.

Tell me about the GoFundMe entrada.
At first I resisted the idea because I don't like asking for aid. I'1000 a little chip prideful in that way, I guess. But it was overwhelming the amount of back up that came through, and people's personal messages that came forth with it was really, really special. Virtually 90 percentage of the money that came in was either someone I knew straight or one of their friends.

I idea about this too at the time of my accident. When you go knocked down that difficult—to really need help, and get it, in that sort of magnitude—is something that not a lot of people will always experience that in their lifetime. It's something completely unique and special. It was very humbling.

While Reynolds has kept his own boats in mostly tropical waters, he took a detour to crew on a voyage from Chile to Antarctica aboard the 38-human foot sloop Spalpine, seen here on a brisk 24-hour interval in Patagonia—l knots of current of air on the nose. Courtesy Dustin Reynolds

I read on your website, The Unmarried-Handed Crewman, that when yous first realized you lot'd lost your arm you weren't sure whether you wanted to call ix-1-1.
I don't retrieve getting hit, and and so when I woke upward it didn't register that the truck actually hitting me. I idea that I avoided him. And so when I realized that my arm was gone, I was like, 'Oh, crap, the truck hit me.' I just screamed for aid a few times and in that location was no one at that place. The guy collection into a ditch. So, at that point, I pushed myself out of the road and I got my phone out of my pocket and . . . I started thinking about information technology.

I dialed 9-ane-1 and correct before I hit transport, I was like, wait a minute. What am I doing? You know, my arm's gone and I can't stand up. I just started thinking about the challenges that are coming up. And aye, I questioned whether I really actually wanted to hit transport on the phone. I wasn't really in any hurting, but I had this realization of what happened, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to still live as a handicapped person, a disabled person.

Yous're not merely alive—you're really living.
Yeah, you know I turned forty when I was in Sri Lanka. And from there I stopped in Chagos and so Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa, where I went effectually the Cape of Good Hope. Then I flew to Chile to crew on a boat to Antarctica and Cape Horn on the way back. I sailed beyond the Atlantic and turned 41 on Ascension Island. More people go to space than to Ascension and Chagos, and I knocked two of them off the list in one yr, plus the Cape of Good Promise, Greatcoat Horn and Antarctica. It was the best year of my life. I got to meet then many amazing things simply in one year and all of them because of sailing.

What'due south next?
I'll finish the circumnavigation and continue sailing. I'chiliad working on a volume, and if I can go a good volume deal I'd similar to get a steel boat and sheet the Northwest Passage. I'd similar to circumnavigate the Americas, become from Hawaii around Cape Horn, and then come up the east side of Southward America and through the Northwest Passage and back down to Alaska.

pasillassoming.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.adventure-journal.com/2019/12/double-amputee-learned-to-sail-on-youtube-is-sailing-solo-around-the-world/

Share this post