Student Lisa gives disabled boy new lease of life

Reporter: DAWN MARSDEN
Date online: 27 May 2010

A PROSTHETICS student put her university work into practise when she gave a Fijian teenager a new lease of life.

Lisa Buckley secured funding to help to bring 16-year-old Kelemete Raivuni from his home 10,000 miles away in the South Pacific to England to have a prosthetic leg fitted after hearing of his plight from her father, Roy Zaman, a British Army support officer based in Fiji.

Roy emailed photographs of Kelemete to Lisa, who is in the final year of a prosthetics and orthotics degree at Salford University, after meeting him in a tiny Fijian village.

Kelemete was born with part of his left leg missing and had been fitted with a very primitive wooden prosthetic which was bulky and ill-fitting.

Lisa (40), of Parkway, Chadderton, was moved by the photographs and secured £4,000 funding from Rotary International, with help from her father, who is a member of the Suva North Fiji branch.

She said: “Kelemete’s false leg was far too small for him and it was tied on with string and held together with masking tape.

“He was coping remarkably well with it because he has never known any different but it must have been very uncomfortable for him.

“When my dad sent me the pictures I was determined to help.”

Lisa enlisted the help of her tutor, Dr Glyn Heath, who runs Lacerta, an animal prosthetics clinic in Salford.

Kelemete was flown to England and is staying with Tony Wright, secretary of the Chadderton and Failsworth Rotary Club.

Lisa and Dr Heath assessed and measured Kelemete’s leg at the clinic at Salford University to determine exactly what kind of prosthetic he needed.

While here, Kelemete has been on a tour of Old Trafford and enjoyed watching several rugby matches in a bid to make the most of his trip.

Lisa said: “He is a lovely lad who keeps thanking us for what we have done.

“The new prosthetic should be finished by next Wednesday and he will have a few days to get used to it before he goes home on June 7.

“If our work has improved his life in any way, however small, it will have all been worth it.

“He is a teenage boy who has been really restricted all his life but now he will hopefully be able to do everything his able bodied friends do.”

Lisa, who became interested in prosthetics after meeting a one-legged man at a biker’s rally, is now working on a plan to fly out to Fiji to track Kelemete’s progress and take prosthetic limbs for local children.

She said: “The prosthetics service in Fiji is really basic.

“Children are just given a limb and told to get on with it and if it breaks, it’s tough.

“There is no follow-up appointments or check-ups to make sure it fits properly and the prosthetics are not changed as children get bigger.”