AMPED

CHAD JUKES: A TOUGH CHOICE

Chad Jukes, 25, chose to amputate.

On December 17, 2006, Jukes, an Army staff sergeant, traveled with his convoy of armored semi trucks, Hummers, and other vehicles nearly 190 miles north from Camp Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq, to the Qayyarah Airfield (Q-West). As the convoy commander, he was responsible for each vehicle and soldier. Riding in front in a light medium tactical vehicle, Jukes was the first to roll over the roadside bomb.

“We were going along and boom,” Jukes says. “There was a bright flash and this power coming through me. I had this calm realization, ‘This is it. I’m along for the ride.’ The next thing I knew, I was hanging outside the truck.” The blast blew open the vehicle’s doors, forcing Jukes to find purchase on the dashboard. The explosion also broke his right femur and shattered his heel.

“Everyone else was OK,” Jukes says. “My guys loaded me onto a stretcher, and I kept yelling, ‘Someone get me a cigarette!’” A Black Hawk helicopter carried Jukes back to Camp Speicher, where surgeons put an external fi xator consisting of four pins and an external rod around his mangled leg. Doctors loaded Jukes, along with other wounded soldiers, onto a C-17 bound for Germany, then the States. The litters were stacked four high along the giant aircraft, only two feet of space between each. “It was miserable,” Jukes says. For 10 hours, he had “no distractions” from his pain.

The pain didn’t stop when Jukes arrived at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center, in El Paso, Texas. Over four months, he endured four surgeries and endless PT. Infection set in, and Jukes faced a difficult decision: the doctors could rebuild his foot with cadaver bones or they could amputate.

“At first, I was very opposed to amputation,” Jukes says. A Utah native and avid sport climber since age 12, Jukes could not imagine living without the sport. But “I researched online and found other climbers who’d had amputations,” he says. Malcolm Daly, a climber who lost his leg due to a 1999 alpinism accident, assured Jukes he’d be able to climb with a prosthetic. “He told me, ‘I would rather be an amputee than a cripple,’” Jukes says. “I called the doctor, and a couple weeks later, we amputated.”

When Jukes awoke from surgery that March (2007), relief rushed over him. “I thought, ‘Yes. I can start recovering now,’” he says. Six weeks later — and just one day after receiving his first prosthesis — Jukes hit the Rock Haus climbing gym, in Logan, Utah. At fi rst, he struggled. “His prosthetic wasn’t working for him,” says Dee Jukes-Cooper, his mother. So, “He turned his ‘foot’ around and then climbed up the wall. He’s always been very determined.” Over the following weeks, Jukes tweaked the prosthetic— e.g., chopping off the toes — until he got it right. “I have to make adjustments to the angle of the foot to work better on a specifi c route,” Jukes says. “It requires some thought and creativity to get through sections. Also, I have no sensitivity to feel . . . my foot position. It requires trust.”

Since resuming the sport, Jukes has climbed in several events, including Gimps on Ice, in Ouray, Colorado; the Hera Climb4Lifes in Utah and Colorado; and Rocktoberfest, in the Red River Gorge. And in summer 2008, Jukes summited Mount Rainier (14,411 feet) with Camp Patriot, an organization that helps disabled veterans experience outdoor adventures. “I am mentally stronger now than I was before,” Jukes says. “The experience has strengthened my resolve to get out and climb.”