Posted on November 18, 2020
Following amputation, Art 'picks himself up' with help of Mary Free Bed at Covenant
Art Bean was running new machinery during a normal day at work when a freak accident changed how the Fairgrove, MI man would do things the rest of his life.
“(The machine) came down to rest on my foot between my steel toe and my ankle, and that crushed everything in between,” said Art, whose hand and hip also were injured.
Just a few days after the March accident, doctors at Hurley Medical Center in Flint determined a below-the-knee amputation was the best course of treatment for the 44-year-old. Soon after, Art went to Mary Free Bed at Covenant in Saginaw to begin his rehabilitation journey.
“The theory and thought behind it was that I’m younger, so I have more life yet to go,” said Art, an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hunting, fishing and competitive archery.
“Life hands you a bunch of crap … What do you do? Do you pick yourself up and move forward, or do you wallow in it?”
Art’s done everything but the latter, pushing himself through inpatient rehabilitation and later during outpatient therapy at Mary Free Bed at Covenant, all while adjusting to a prosthetic limb.
“I’m not a glutton for punishment, but as the saying goes, you get knocked down, you get back up and brush yourself off,” Art said of his rehabilitation team. “Well, they’re doing that. They want to push you to where you’re able to do what you want to do.”
Art recently was fitted with a new foot and hydraulic ankle that will give him even more mobility to get back to enjoying the outdoor activities he loves.
“I might be up and down a hill some,” he said. “I know my limits, but I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to see what I can do.”
In this video, Art and members of his rehabilitation team share how they’re working together to do just that.
