Leg Amputation
In February 1858, Brookings rode a horse from Sioux Falls to the Yankton area during a blizzard. His horse slipped and fell into Split Rock Creek in the freezing weather. Brookings made it safely to Yankton, but his wet legs had suffered such severe frostbite they both needed to be amputated. He spent the rest of his life using a pair of squeaky, wooden legs that caused him discomfort and sometimes made walking difficult.
Read more about this topic: Wilmot Brookings
Famous quotes containing the words leg and/or amputation:
““Which is more important to you, your field or your children?” the department head asked. She replied, “That’s like asking me if I could walk better if you amputated my right leg or my left leg.””
—Anonymous Parent. As quoted in Women and the Work Family Dilemma, by Deborah J. Swiss and Judith P. Walker, ch. 2 (1993)
“The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)