John O'Brien, MD (right) and Dave Mahler, CP (left) pose with a Grenadian man who has been fitted with a new artifical leg.

It was during a 2002 family vacation in Grenada that John O’Brien, M.D., first thought about starting a clinic to supply and make braces and artificial limbs for residents of this small Eastern Caribbean island.

O’Brien, section chief of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Hospital of Saint Raphael and a graduate of St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada, was touring St. George’s General Hospital and was astounded at the large number of amputees walking on whittled tree stumps.

“These people would either literally have a wooden leg carved out of a tree trunk, or would be walking with no legs, using only crutches to ambulate,” the Cheshire resident says.

He met with representatives of the Ministry of Health, the Grenada National Council for the Disabled and St. George’s School of Medicine, to try and set up a clinic. After 18 months of planning, O’Brien held a weeklong clinic at the medical school last November, making new, artificial limbs for two people and dozens of repairs on existing, artificial limbs.

The clinic was already well stocked with equipment that O’Brien and Cromwell resident Dave Mahler of New England Orthotics and Prosthetics had worked to secure. Used, artificial limbs from throughout Connecticut were collected and shipped to Grenada along with braces, canes and walkers donated by patients and orthotic and prosthetic vendors. Both Saint Raphael’s and Mid-State Medical Center donated OR supplies. St. George’s University School of Medicine alumni association donated money to purchase equipment to fabricate artificial limbs.

O’Brien says the local residents in Grenada played a large part in this endeavor’s success. “A local baker, himself an amputee, was extremely helpful, allowing us to use his oven to heat the plastic to make these limbs.”

O’Brien plans to hold a clinic annually, making Grenada a regional referral center for orthotics and prosthetics, and is considering establishing clinics in other needy areas.