Hugh Herr
Lost both legs in a blizzard at 17 and built himself better ones, then built them for everyone else
Hugh Herr grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the youngest of five in a Mennonite family, and by seventeen was one of the best rock climbers in America. In January 1982 he and a friend climbed an ice route on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, were caught in a blizzard on the way down, and spent three nights in the open at twenty degrees below zero. A volunteer searching for them, Albert Dow, was killed in an avalanche. Both of Herr\'s legs were amputated below the knee.
His doctors told him he would never climb again. He built his own prosthetic feet in the workshop, with spikes for ice and small wedges for narrow cracks, and could lengthen his legs to reach holds. Within a year he was climbing harder routes than before his accident, which some competitors complained was unfair. It struck him that the problem had never been his body but the technology attached to it.
He had been a poor student. He went back to school, took a physics degree, then a master\'s in mechanical engineering at MIT and a doctorate in biophysics at Harvard. At the MIT Media Lab he leads the biomechatronics group, which built the first powered ankle that pushes off like a real one and is working on connecting limbs directly to the nervous system.
He wears his own designs and still climbs. He says he intends to end disability, not manage it.