Casey Casey Tibbs, Petty Officer 1st Class (US Navy), made history in 2004 by becoming the first active-duty military member to compete in a Paralympic Games. As if this wasn’t achievement enough, Casey topped off this experience by leaving the Games with two medals around his neck: the silver in the pentathlon and the gold in the 4x100m. In March 2001, Casey lost his right leg below the knee as the result of a motorcycle accident when he took a turn too fast and hit a guardrail. After several weeks of learning to walk and run on a prosthesis, his main challenge was convincing the Navy to allow him to remain on active duty. Pushing himself to the limits, Casey received the okay to remain in the Navy. Casey has always loved to run and even earned high school varsity letters in track & field events and football. It wasn’t until his accident though that Casey put his running to the test and, in 2003, with no training, took first place in the 100m, 200m, and 400m events at the Hanger Endeavour Games. Seeing what he could do, Casey set a goal for himself to take gold at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. After only a couple months of training he earned a spot on the US Paralympic team and conquered his goal, winning gold in the 4 x 100m and bringing home the silver in the men’s Pentathlon. Casey wears multiple Ossur products and credits them for making him the best on and off the track. Running faster today than before his amputation, he uses Ossur’s Cheetah® and Flex-Run™ to give him high energy return and to help him sprint past the finish line. For everyday use Casey wears the Modular III™, Vari-Flex® and likes the Ceterus® for its great rotational radius, especially when competing in the Discus and Shot-Put. Casey was recently re-located from San Antonio in Texas to the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, California, where he works with the hospital and it’s “Morale, Welfare and Recreation program”, administering and running fitness programs for members of the military who have been injured while on active duty. As an amputee, Casey relates well to patients and serves as a mentor during the rehabilitation process. The hospital allows Casey to split his time between work and training, a huge perk of his new position. He spends 20-30 hours per week working and the rest on the track or at the base facilities focusing on his training. Tibbs trains with the resident athletes and US Paralympics Track & Field National Team Coach Joaquim Cruz at the US Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Chula Vista, California. Casey’s current orders are to compete in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, where he hopes to bring home the gold in the 100m, 200m, and 400m events. Artificial Limb Specialists is proud to announce that they will be sponsoring Casey for his quest at gold in the 2008 Paralympic games in Beijing, China. In preparation for the competition, there will be a collaborative effort to improve upon his prosthetic design to better optimize his speed and agility. Look for details about his prosthetic design in upcoming updates. Good Luck Casey!