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Janie Slaven
Coy Sumler hits his stride
Coal miner who lost both legs stands up to the new challenge of walking on prosthetic limbs
If you have a chance to speak with Coy Sumler, don’t pass it up.
The 63-year-old Strunk Ridge resident has quite a story to tell but finds that many are afraid to speak with him once they see he has no legs.
“I never did want anybody to feel sorry for me,” Coy told The Record. “I had a car and could go. I’ve always done what I wanted to do.”
Coy was initially paralyzed from the waist down on November 24, 1987, when he was working as a roof bolter in a Perry County mine and a rock fell on him.
“I didn’t let it bother me,” Sumler said. “I just went on with my life. The only thing was that I would wake up at 5 a.m. to go to work and couldn’t go.”
Coy lived with his mother, the late Nancy Sumler, so they could take care of each other. About 12 years ago, he began therapy to try to walk on his own legs but gave it up because his mother was afraid she couldn’t help him if he fell.
Five years ago, Coy began to experience flu-like symptoms. By this time he had remarried but by the time he and wife Rosa found out he was suffering from a massive staph infection, it was too late to save his left leg. The following year, a blood clot claimed his right leg.
Coy and Rosa talked about the use of prosthetics but encountered difficulties when trying to obtain them through Workers Compensation.
“I got tired of sitting,” Coy said,” but everybody told me I was too old to get the legs.”
“I fought with [Workers Comp] for a year and a half,” Rosa recalled. “They told him right to his face he couldn’t do it.”
But with a little persistence and a lot of determination, the Sumlers got approval for a hydraulic prosthetic for Coy’s right leg and another left prosthetic which he uses for balance. For the past five months, he has been undergoing physical therapy three days a week with the help of George W. Loze, PT, CLT, and the staff of Lighthouse Physical Therapy in Whitley City. He and Rosa are also assisted by personal care attendant Heather Moore.
“Lighthouse has been such a blessing,” Coy said, adding that doctors originally intended to send him to Virginia which was out of the question because of today’s gas prices. “George doesn’t push me. He tells me when he’s holding me up and when I’m bearing my own weight.”
Coy at first went to work strengthening his arms and hips. Three months ago, he took his first steps — 12 of them, to be exact. Now he walks four laps across the physical therapy room.
“All the goals that have been set for him, he’s blown out of the water,” Rosa said.
Loze told The Record that he had reservations about helping Coy walk too soon but his client would not be discouraged.
“His hip wasn’t ready but HE was ready,” Loze added, “A lot of people over 60 don’t even attempt this…even if they have just lost one leg.”
“Other people like me just won’t set their head to it,” Coy said, adding that he would like to see more handicap accessible facilities around the county to encourage people.
“It’s a lot of re-learning everything,” Rosa said. “After a while, it will become nature again. I think he’s doing really good. He’s so full of life.”
“I just make the best of every day,” Coy told The Record with a smile.
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