Kitchener resident and former marine cycles 1,200 km for Ukraine war amputees
CBC
It's no small feat to cycle 1,200 kilometres, let alone in war-torn Ukraine as an above-knee amputee.
Kitchener's Jakob Kepka did just that.
The 67-year-old is a former U.S. marine who started his journey by bike on Aug. 11 in Krakow, Poland and finished in Kiev, Ukraine a month later on Sept. 11.
He said he wanted to raise awareness for the struggles war amputees face in conflict zones like Ukraine. His campaign is called the HopeRaising Expedition.
"I wanted to show them face to face, right? Life doesn't end with amputation," he said.
Kepka, an avid long-distance cyclist, was working in Poland and Ukraine two years ago on the border.
On a weekend outing in Lviv, Kepka ran into a young soldier who had recently lost part of his leg and was walking on crutches. Kepka was wearing his expensive bionic knee.
"He looked at it, then he looked at me and I looked at him and all I saw was the despair in his eyes and a loss of hope," Kepka said.
Kepka said he regretted not stopping to talk to the young man. That not only haunted him, but inspired him to take action. He said the shame of not helping another amputee drove him to do the ride.
When he started his month-long expedition, his early goal was to fundraise for prosthetics for soldiers affected by the war.
As he rode with his team he realized there was a bigger issue at hand — the availability of healthcare professionals to work on amputees.
"You can have a warehouse full of prosthetics, but if you don't have a prosthetist and the prosthetic technicians to fit those prosthetics, those prosthetics will never get on the people that need them," Kepka said.
Kepka is now working to develop partnerships with Canadian and other Western foundations and universities in rehabilitation healthcare fields to partner up with clinics in Ukraine to develop programs that would help them get the qualified people they need.
Yaroslava Kolodii helped coordinate the HopeRaising Expedition project, but said that the true mastermind was Jakob Kepka.
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