Advances in military give boy a normal life

Four-year-old Peter Belin of Silver Spring is like most boys his age.

He loves outdoor sports, learning to swim, dressing up as a superhero for Halloween, and playfully kicking his three brothers while engaging in rough-and-tumble childhood games.

In fact, Peter has achieved such a level of normalcy that his siblings and schoolmates hardly think of the one thing that has made him different since infancy: a first-of-its kind prosthetic leg with a rolling device on the bottom, which, unlike a “non-articulating” or immobile leg, allowed Peter to crawl.

The “crawling prosthesis,” created by David Beachler, a certified prosthetist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, is a “perfect example of how military medicine is translating in improvements in the quality of life for civilians,” says Cynthia Gilman, special assistant to the president for advancement of cancer research and collaborative relationships at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine.

The foundation is partnering with musician Tim McGraw’s Tug McGraw Foundation for Country United, a symposium bringing together physicians and health care professionals Friday in the District to discuss how they can bring military medicine from the “front lines to the home front,” as Ms. Gilman puts it.

While pregnant with Peter and his twin brother, Danny, Jennifer Belin discovered she had a problem pregnancy. The twins were getting disproportionate blood supplies, a complication known as twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, which usually results in a miscarriage.

Mrs. Belin delivered successfully, but Peter was born with a deformity. His right leg “was like necrotic tissue,” Mrs. Belin recalls.

When Peter was a day old, Mrs. Belin and her husband, Dr. Eric Belin, an active duty naval dermatologist at the National Naval Medical Center, made the painful but inescapable decision to amputate Peter’s leg from the upper femur down.

Dr. Belin consulted with top military physicians like Dr. Paul F. Pasquina, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and chief of the integrated department of orthopedics and rehabilitation at Walter Reed.

Through Dr. Pasquina, the Belins were introduced to Mr. Beachler, who has worked for years at Walter Reed with combat amputees, fitting them with new limbs so they can try to move on with their lives.

When Peter was approaching his first birthday, Mr. Beachler created his special crawling prosthesis, which enabled Peter not only to crawl, but to progress in his gait development on par with his twin brother.

“The crawling prosthesis was used to help [Peter] reach developmental milestones, which are important in a child’s development,” says Mr. Beachler.

As Peter advances in age, he visits Mr. Beachler at Walter Reed for regular “fittings,” where new legs are crafted to keep pace with his growing body.

On a recent visit to the Military Advanced Training Center, an outpatient facility at Walter Reed, Mr. Beachler and Mrs. Belin allowed The Washington Times to see firsthand Peter being fitted for a new leg. It doesn’t take long to recognize that Peter has become an inspiration to the other amputees in the lab, who may be older than he is and have lost a limb under different circumstances, but still share a profound bond with the young boy.

“He grabs their heart strings. They all want their photo with him,” says Dr. Belin, who explains that Peter’s interaction with soldiers “is a two-way street - Peter sees some people with bilateral amputations, and then they see him.”

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