Thirteen-year-old Walter Argueta Palucho is taking his first step for the second time.
As a child, he toddled, then walked, and then ran on strong legs that promised to carry him on his life`s journey. This time he`s teetering on man- made substitutes.
Walter refuses to be tentative, even though the memory of the explosion, which three months ago in his civil war-racked homeland, El Salvador, cost him both legs and his right arm, is still traumatically vivid.
He nods affirmatively to his doctors that he`s ready to walk, despite the fact that his chances of walking again had been reckoned by his therapist to be fifty-fifty, and despite the risk of a fall that might mean more injury and pain.
”It`s an athletic event,” Michael Quigley later explained of the effort, skill and energy required of Walter to walk even a short distance with both legs amputated above the knee and an arm amputated above the elbow. Quigley is an Oakbrook Terrace prosthetist; he designs and custom builds artificial limbs. ”Essentially, Walter is learning to walk on two stilts with a joint that could collapse and throw him on the ground. His training is like that of an athlete, involving balance, strength and timing.”
Walter slides forward in his wheelchair. His titanium rod-like legs move slightly as the attached shoe-box clean white sneakers hit the red pavers at the entrance of Hinsdale Hospital.
His confidence is high because a few minutes earlier, in his hospital room filled with helium balloons and miniature cars, his favorite new toy, Walter took a few mincing steps aided by Quigley`s hand at his back for balance. An audience of doctors, nurses, and a host of others, who, in one way or another, are trying to make Walter`s I-will-walk-again dream come true, burst into applause. Walter`s mother, Lidia Argueta, beamed.
Now Walter wants to walk completely unaided and to take his first steps toward independence outside the hospital, where there are no walls, no barriers.
Firmly gripping the tripod-based cane in his left hand, he stands up. He takes a step. Then he slowly and deliberately steps again. Walter, shy by nature, smiles broadly. Someone yells, ”That`s a gorgeous smile!” and the smile gets even broader. Walter knows that this isn`t walking the way he quick-stepped his way through boyhood for more than a dozen years. But he understands that he`s standing tall and moving forward on his own volition.
It`s an emotional moment for the group of assembled care-givers and friends. ”He said he had faith he`d walk again,” says rehabilitation specialist Dr. Robert Eilers, his voice breaking.
Without his artificial legs, Walter is acutely aware that, in his native land, where disability is a stigma and life outside his home is barrier-ridden, his small body mass is wholly dependent upon someone, or something, for mobility. Without his prostheses he must be carried from place to place. Self-locomotion is limited to a wheelchair, which to be even marginally functional, requires repair facilities, a barrier-free environment and lots of paved area, none of which is available to Walter.
In an impoverished country like El Salvador, physical skills, survival, and dignity are often one and the same. Before a team of American benefactors led by Project HOPE (a non-profit group started 30 years ago, which sends medical professionals to countries to care for the needy and to share their expertise) and U.S. Rep. Harris Fawell (R., Ill.) intervened, Walter`s post-amputation future was all but prescribed:
Without rehabilitation and ongoing support, he would live at the barely subsistence-level income of his school teacher-mother (who said she no longer has any contact with Walter`s father) or whatever his three brothers, aged 28 to 12, and a sister, 16, could provide for him, Lidia explained. The government will provide ”not a penny” for his care, she said. And, if war, death or fate ever cut him off from his familial lifeline, Walter, like so many other mutilated children of war, likely would be forced to beg for his needs. Quigley a 1974 Project HOPE volunteer in South America said he`s seen such tragedies happen:
”That kid (Walter) would have a hell of a time making a living in the U.S., but a child like that (a triple-amputee) in El Salvador has all his problems multiplied to such an extent that, if anything goes wrong-his prostheses breaks and he can`t get it fixed, or his wheelchair breaks, or someone steals it because they think it`s worth something-he`s doomed to moving around on a board with some wheels nailed on the bottom. That could be Walter`s future.”
That possibility haunts him, he said, which is why he`s making Walter`s new legs as ”goof-proof” as possible. Quigley said Walter`s prostheses, including an artificial arm that will be fitted later, will be constructed for durability and practicality rather than loaded with the latest in high-tech extras like pneumatic joints.
The outpouring of concern by people like Quigley and Eilers, at times almost overwhelms Walter, who said he thoroughly enjoys being in the U.S., especially since there are lots of Bugs Bunny cartoons and Cubs games to watch. The biggest surprise, he said, is the kindness of the people he has encountered. But it wasn`t so long ago that Walter begged his mother to let him die.
(Lidia and Walter, who speak only Spanish, were interviewed with the help of volunteer translator Ruben Mazzulla of Downers Grove, who is raising funds for Walter`s expenses.)
On Saturday, June 4, in a grammar school yard tucked away in the El Salvador village of San Pedro (population 3,000) six boys, including Walter, were playing. About a month earlier, one of the boys had found an explosive device (variously described as a land mine or an anti-tank grenade) and secretly kept it. That day, he showed his find to his playmates. It exploded. Lidia who lives near the school, the same one at which she taught, heard the noise and ran. Seconds later, she saw the lifeless bodies of Walter`s five friends sprawled on the ground. Her mutilated son was still conscious.
”Mother, I`m killed,” Walter said.
”Then when he looked and saw that he lost both his legs (and severely injured his right arm), he said, `Mother, let me die,` ” Lidia related. ”I couldn`t think about anything but taking him to the hospital (about 16 miles away, she estimated). We don`t have a car; so my oldest son borrowed a car-there was no ambulance-and it took us a half hour from the time of the explosion until we got to the hospital. Walter was conscious the whole time.” Lidia said amid the shock and confusion, she never thought to put a tourniquet on Walter wounds. She could offer no explanation as to why he didn`t bleed to death, except to say, ”It`s a miracle.”
He remained in the hospital at San Miguel for 40 days. Lidia said the bills were astronomical. She had no savings and was just making ends meet for her five children at their 3-room home, which lacked running water. Walter`s medical bills were paid for by donations from Lidia`s former students, co-workers, and her 7-, 8- and-9-year-old pupils who took up a collection.
The story about Walter and his playmates was reported on Salvadoran television and radio stations, Lidia said, and the publicity caught the attention of Project HOPE workers. Under a program that brings amputee children to the United States for rehabilitation, Project HOPE offered Walter a chance to be fitted with artificial limbs. Before the offer, Lidia said, Walter had been despondent. After the offer, his spirits soared. He would walk again, he promised her.
Before Walter would take the step that would span a continent, he would be the object of a watershed of good will. Eastern Airlines donated transportation for Walter and his mother. Fawell arranged for Hinsdale Hospital to donate an estimated $38,000 of services over the term of his rehabilitation, which is predicted to last about four months. Such generosity became contagious.
Eilers and his colleague, Dr. Daniel Hurley, donated their services, valued at about $3,600. Other hospital staff physicians who were asked to provide initial care also worked without compensation. Hospital Chaplin Mario Ruf acted as translator. Quigley donated his labor, estimated at about $10,000, for the construction of the prostheses. Hinsdale employee Enio Marquez and his wife offered to serve as the host family, opening up their home to Lidia and Walter.
Midway through the three-hour interview with Lidia and Walter, a reporter noted that they were hesitant to answer questions about life back in their country. Each reply was carefully worded, as though a misstated fact might have grave consequences. The reporter asked Lidia if she was afraid.
Yes, she said. The publicity that brought a public outcry while Walter was in the hospital in San Miguel provoked both warring factions, the government and the guerrillas, to each blame the other for ”the bomb.” And that, she said makes returning home frightening:
”The area where I live is very affected by the Central American war. We are going back to a war zone. The chances are that Walter could go back and go through a similar tragedy again (be harmed or killed). I need to go back because my other children are there. But if my children were here, I`d never go back.”
One of the conditions of her visit to come the U.S., she said, was that she would agree not to ask to stay here permanently or to seek a job. Project HOPE spokesperson Mary Huehn said that those stipulations did not come from Project HOPE, but she said it was likely Lidia had to make such a pledge in order to obtain passports from El Salvador`s government.
Eilers said Walter has discussed with him his fears about returning home. ”He`s not going to be in a very protective environment,” Eilers said.
”He`s going to return to a war zone where he`s just another casualty of war.
”For Walter, this therapy is a fantasy come true. The only thing I`m hoping for is that we could continue to have him return here for his prosthetic management (refitting his prostheses as he grows through puberty)
at least once a year. My fear is if we don`t support the devices, they`ll break or malfunction and end up in a closet. So in Walter`s closet in El Salvador will sit his fantasy. That would be like a tease. We don`t want to tease him. We don`t want to take his fantasy away. We have a chance to make a difference in a boy`s life, for his entire life.”
As Lidia begans to talk more freely during the interview, she revealed a smoldering rage reserved for the warring factions on both sides who, she said, have kept her country and her life in a state of undeclared war for nearly eight years. She said she believes only the American people can stop the war by pressuring politicians to withhold economic aid from her government. She believes the funds are used not for citizen relief and assistance, but to sustain the war effort. ”The chance for peace is here,” she said.
Fawell said he is sympathetic to her concerns: ”I`ve found in Central America, whether the country is run by a left or right (wing) government, when we do give economic aid, it doesn`t trickle down to the people.” (Estimates vary, but published reports fix at $3 billion the total amount of U.S. aid given to El Salvador since 1980.) Fawell was one of 11 congressmen who, in 1987, toured El Salvador, where, he said, the group was escorted at all times by 25 soldiers armed with automatic weapons.
”The government will probably fall now that Duarte is dying of cancer,” Fawell said. Salvador President Jose Napoleon Duarte, 62, has been treated in the U.S. for terminal cancer. ”Duarte`s death,” Fawell predicted, ”could leave the country ripe for a takeover by the leftists (guerrillas). The so-called war zone will probably continue to be a war zone.” It`s a situation that Fawell said gnaws at him. Consequently, he has contacted two ”corporate entities” and suggested they consider providing funds so that Walter can be educated in this country.
”I believe there`s a great potential in that young man” Fawell said.
”Maybe Walter could come here on a student visa and obtain an excellent education, and then armed with that education, he could be a blessing to his own country.”
Lidia said, right now, Walter`s only chance for education even at the high school level will depend upon his older brothers finishing their school- teacher studies so they can pool their earnings with hers to pay for Walter`s special needs and his transportation. Given the political climate in her country, such a plan has a slim chance at success, she allowed, adding, that another plan, another way, must be found.
Quigley said he sees in Lidia something he`s seen countless times in other devoted third-world parents, a commitment to procure whatever resources they need for their children regardless of the sacrifice: ”I`ve seen mothers walk for seven days carrying their children on their shoulders to get to a clinic. . . . Lidia, she`s that kind of parent.”
Eilers and others interviewed described Lidia as profusely grateful for all that is being done for Walter. For her part, Lidia insisted she`s determined to help Walter ”be something, like a doctor, a lawyer, a professional. It`s the most important thing in my life.”
It`s also painfully obvious to Lidia, a proud, independent woman, that Walter`s immediate recovery-and possibly his future-may well depend upon the kindness of strangers.
