CRUTCHES FOR AFRICA
David Talbot is a child of the baby boom after WWII.
Born in 1952, David started well but in the spring of 1955, when he was 2.5 years old, he contracted polio, just 2 weeks after the announcement that a vaccination had been discovered.
David went through several years of rehab and started on his journey to overcome the physical restrictions that were the result with his bout with polio.
As the challenge was physical, that is where David put his focus.
High School football, mountain climbing and bicycling in Europe (even running with the bulls in Pamplona) were his signs that despite the disfiguration, he had whipped polio.
Or so David thought. After a number of active careers from Dental Hygiene, teaching and professional photographer, He is now back in the struggle against polio.
This time it is the return of the symptoms, not the disease itself. Joint, bone and muscle pain and a continued loss of strength in his polio affected left leg have left him back on crutches after some 45 years of freedom from mobility equipment.
In 2005 David was in Uganda, East Africa with his wife Candice where they witnessed an incredible need for mobility devices. The impact of seeing the need first hand was the seed that grew into Crutches 4 Africa. Since the inception, 98,000 mobility devices have been given away free to people in need in 16 countries in Africa and 10 countries in other parts of the developing world.
David is a Paul Harris fellow and is a member of Mountain Foothills Rotary club in Evergreen Colorado, and was the 2011 recipient of the International Service Award for a Polio Free World.
Update: On November 13th, 2016, David died. He experienced major cardiac arrest during which his heart stopped altogether. CPR was performed for over 30 minutes and his heart was restarted with the help of some electrical shocks. His story of “new life” and recovery continues.