"I still have my hands and half my legs. It’s not the end of the world," said Michael Kogan.
Michael Kogan has a good reason to be angry but he is not--after all, he lost both his legs while doing a good deed for someone else.
In April, the Bucks County man was heading home when he saw another driver on the side of the road with a flat tire. He pulled over to help her. Within seconds, another driver rear-ended the woman's car killing her and crushing Michael's legs. Both his legs were later amputated above the knee.
With no insurance and no money for prosthetics, Kogan, 28, was facing the grim possibility of being wheelchair bound. But his good deed didn't go unnoticed thanks another Good Samaritan Tim Rayer and his team at Prosthetic Innovations in Eddystone--who heard about Michael's story.
"You can't put a price tag on it. It's amazing, it makes you feel great," said Rayer.
The new prosthetic legs were designed, measured and built in a week to fit Michael—costing $60,000 and paid for by Rayer. They allow him to once again do things that he never gave a second thought to before, like stand in the shower or brush his teeth in the mirror.
"To lose a leg below the knee takes about 42-percent more energy. What it would feel like to you and I is like walking up the stairs all day long," said Rayer. Michael goes through hours of rehab about four days a week, taking "short and choppy steps" and learning to be what he called "high again."
Kogan, a Russian immigrant, who came to pursue the America dream, stopped long enough to help somebody else and in turn was rewarded for it by Rayer and his staff.
"I will pray for the rest of this life for this guy's family. God bless him," Kogan said about his benefactor.
