Valley volunteers rebuilding lives

Cortland Rotary Club and a Howland orthotics center have joined forces to provide prosthetics to earthquake victims.

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

Prosthetics For Haiti

Video

Donated prosthetic feet from the Mahoning Valley are being refurbished and sent to Haitian earthquake victims.

John N. Billock of Howland is coming to the aid of Haitian earthquake victims a world away. With the help of his staff, Billock, owner and clinical director of the Orthotics & Prosthetics Rehabilitation Engineering Centre, is collecting prosthetic devices to send to Haiti for people who lost limbs from injuries suffered in the Jan. 12 earthquake there.

Billock and company are inspecting, cleaning, repairing, assembling and categorizing prosthetic components and urethane feet, ranging in sizes from children to adults.

He said the components, which are about ready to be shipped, include 60 to 70 feet and 20 to 25 knee joints as part of kits for above- and below-the-knee amputations.

Components for legs, knees and feet appear to be the most needed, Billock said.

Healing Hands for Haiti, a nonprofit organization with which Billock plans to work, reported there were 2,000 to 4,000 amputations in the first two weeks after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake.

Billock predicted there would be many more amputations if crush wounds are not treated and become infected.

The quake severely damaged the capital, Port-au-Prince, including Healing Hands’ medical, rehabilitation and prosthetic fabrication facility there that provides prosthetic and orthotics services on a volunteer basis.

Fortunately, said Billock of Cortland, a Healing Hands facility outside the capital was not damaged by the earthquake and is in operation.

Healing Hands is the organization to which Billock plans to deliver the prosthetic components he collects. He is talking with the 910th Airlift Wing at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna about possibly transporting the artificial feet, legs and knees to Haiti.

“We have $25,000 to $30,000 worth of used and donated components to send to Haiti. If the 910th can take them to Haiti, and we can deliver them to Healing Hands directly, we would feel better knowing they got to whom they were intended,” said Billock, a 1966 graduate of Youngstown East High School.

Billock, 62, who graduated from Northwestern University and was on staff at the university’s Prosthetic/Orthotics Center, specializes in electronic hand research. He said basic mechanical prosthetics, however, are more appropriate for Haiti.

He said the orthotics and prosthesis center in Howland, which he began in 1974, had a good start on gathering the prostheses needed for the Haitian project from a collection of components left there over the years as clients were fitted for new devices.

Also, he said, when clients passed away their families often brought their prosthesis to the center.

Now, the unused devices have an important use.

Billock said anyone who has prosthetic limbs not being used and wants to donate them to the Haitian relief effort can do so by dropping them off at the center at 700 Howland-Wilson Road SE at the intersection of state Route 82, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

“We had no idea of the magnitude of organizing something meaningful like this,” he said of himself and his associate prosthetist, Jean Ann Pasini, who is working with him on the project, along with their technical and administrative staff.

Billock’s wife, Dottie, is assistant director of the business, and their daughter, Tara, is accounts administrator.

His compassion for the people of Haiti also got Billock involved in Rotary Club Haitian relief efforts.

The day after the earthquake he approached the Cortland Rotary Club, of which he is a member, about helping. The club committed $1,000 and asked members to match that amount. So far, $2,400 has been raised, Billock said.

Out of the Cortland Rotary project came a request from J. Douglas Simpson, the Rotary District 6650 governor, for Billock to head up its Haitian relief committee.

District 6650, which represents 48 Rotary clubs in northeast Ohio, is raising money and putting together disaster relief kits through Rotary International to be delivered to Rotary District 7020, which includes Haiti.

“My whole life has been about helping people. That’s what I do,” said Billock, who himself wears a prosthesis and understands the need in Haiti from personal experience.

At the age of 2, his left foot was cut off by a sickle-bar mower in an accident on the family farm in the New Middletown area.

“In a disaster like this, knowing there would be amputees, I wanted to do something,” Billock added. “They need our help, and we have the resources and ability, and in my opinion, the responsibility, to do something.”

alcorn@vindy.com