Amputee’s successful and motivating return to parachuting

Meet double amputee Dana Bowman who continues to skydive and then gives a motivational speech.  His story is pretty remarkable as just five months after having both of his legs amputated, Dana Bowman was back to doing what he loved — jumping out of airplanes.

In early 1994, Bowman, who was 31 at the time, was a member of the U.S. Army’s elite parachute team, the Golden Knights. During an annual training in Yuma, Ariz., Bowman and his teammate, Sgt. Jose Aguillon, collided in air at a combined speed of 300 mph.

The impact killed Aguillon and severed both of Bowman’s legs, one above the knee, one below.

After months of rehabilitation at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Bowman asked his doctors for a weekend pass to skydive with his team at a wedding. The doctors laughed at the idea, but gave Bowman the pass, thinking he was joking about skydiving.

The following Monday, though, Bowman showed his doctors the photos and video of his weekend skydive, making sure to point out the prosthetic legs in the pictures, he said in a recent phone interview.

“Their eyes bugged out,” Bowman said of his doctors. “… They were just blown away.”

A few months later, in Nov. 1994, Bowman skydived into his re-enlistment ceremony for the U.S. Army. Bowman retired from the Army as a sergeant first class in 1997, and went back to school to become a pilot. Bowman is now a flight instructor and travels the country to tell his inspirational story of recovery.

And Thursday, Bowman, 46, will jump into Roseburg and share his story with Douglas County residents at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in honor of National Prosthetics Day. And even though Bowman spent more than 15 years in the military, his story speaks to people of all walks of life, he said.

“Everybody’s looking for motivation, inspiration, especially in these trying times,” he said.

Bowman hopes people will look at his story of tragedy and take note of how his attitude about the accident changed his life, he said.

“You just have to go out there and make the best out of life,” he said.

Read entire article Amputee to parachute into Rosberg

Below is the video