Scott Rigsby knows firsthand about the challenges Aimee Copeland will face when she is introduced to a life with prosthetics.
It’s been 26 years since Rigsby lost his right leg in a 1986 South Georgia road accident and 10 years since he lost part of his other leg, which had been mangled in the crash.
The University of Georgia graduate endured more than two dozen surgeries and faced the likelihood of more before deciding in 1998 to have his left leg amputated below the knee after reconstructive surgery left him in constant pain and unable to walk properly.
After an Atlanta Thrashers team physician fitted him with high-tech prosthetic legs, Rigsby, now an internationally known triathlete, said he was finally able to get on with his life.
Today he's ready to join another challenge. Aimee Copeland’s family has asked him to be a resource and provide emotional support when the Snellville woman, who has lost several limbs to infection after a zip line accident, has to begin a life with prosthetics.
"She's already showed us ‘I'm a fighter. My attitude is going to determine my altitude, and I'm going to keep positive,' " Rigsby, who lives in Atlanta, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week.
“She didn’t lose the Aimee that her family loves," Rigsby said. "She didn’t lose the Aimee that her friends love. Her value is not in her limbs.”
Aimee Copeland reached another major milestone this week. Doctors Hospital in Augusta, where she is being treated, upgraded her condition to serious from critical.
The University of West Georgia graduate student was infected with the flesh-decaying bacteria called necrotizing fasciitis after she fell May 1 onto rocks in the Little Tallapoosa River near Carrollton and suffered a bad cut. A homemade zip line carrying her had snapped.
To save her life, doctors amputated her left leg at the hip, her right foot and her hands.
Rigsby said Wednesday he has already met with the Copeland family, though he did not provide details of his meeting. He has not, however, met with Aimee.
When he does meet with her, he said one of the first pieces of advice will be to "substantially" temper her expectations.
Not being able to meet self-imposed high expectations can be crushing, Rigsby said. “It’s a huge blow to their ego. It’s a huge blow to their self-confidence. It’s a blow to their progress.”
Lowering expectations allows a patient to revel in the little milestones along the way. "It gives you confidence. It gives you momentum. It even gets the people around you fired up at your progress," he said. "It can be something as little as standing for a minute on your prosthetic leg. That’s a huge victory.”
The triathlete, author and motivational speaker said Copeland’s “courage and fortitude,” the love of her family and admirers around the world, and advances in prosthetics will work in her favor.
“I’ve seen about every kind of prosthetic device out there over the past 26 years,” Rigsby said. “She has a greater opportunity of having a meaningful life.”
A life of purpose
Rigsby can relate to the life-changing event Copeland experienced and the challenges she’ll face. His belief that she and anyone can be an "overcomer" is reflected in the title of his book, “Unthinkable.”
It was on July 23, 1986 when the then-18-year-old Rigsby was thrown from the back of a pickup truck pulling a trailer and dragged more than 300 feet over hot asphalt on a rural road. An 18-wheeler trying to pass the pickup had clipped the trailer as it approached a bridge.
The 3-ton trailer landed on Rigsby’s right leg, which had to be amputated. He also lost his ankle bone, which surgeons replaced by reconstructing it with bone from other parts of his body.
More surgeries followed his UGA graduation in 1993, but Rigsby continued to suffer tremendous physical pain and walking was a struggle. On June 22, 1998 he elected to have his remaining leg amputated below the knee.
His high-tech prosthetic legs have literally propelled him into a new life of purpose and international recognition as a triathlete, but it wasn’t before he also had to battle depression, an addiction to prescription drugs and debt. His life began turning around in 2005 after he began training for triathlons.
He’s completed multiple triathlons and set world records for a double below-the-knee amputee in the full marathon, half Ironman, and international distance triathlon, which led to a spot on the 2006 USA Triathlon Team.
In 2007, Rigsby completed an Ironman distance triathlon at the Ford Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, becoming first double amputee with prosthetics to do so.
He had to swim 2.4 miles in the Pacific Ocean, bike 112 miles through lava fields in 100-plus-degree temperatures and run on his prosthetic legs 26.2 miles, all within 17 hours.
That same year he won the 2007 Physically Challenged Athlete of the Year Award from Competitor Magazine. He was named one of the Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame 2008 “Stars of the Year.”
Through his foundation, Rigsby has also worked with hundreds of wounded veterans who have lost limbs in combat, and he'll draw on that experience in working with Copeland.
He said Copeland is already an inspiration to scores of people.
“Yes, the process is arduous,” he said of Copeland’s road ahead. “And there are dark moments [and] grieving that a person must endure when they’ve lost a limb, especially multiple ones.”
“But the point is not to dwell on that,” Rigsby said. “I want to be able to take away people’s excuses.”
Benefit concerts
Two concerts are planned in Snellville Friday and Saturday to benefit Copeland and her family. The concerts are from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday on the Snellville Towne Green. More information is available at www.snellvillepride.com and by writing aimeesweekend@gmail.com.
Channel 2 Action News contributed to this report.
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