Local Amputees Prepare For Warrior Dash

A soldier and boy, both amputees, met for the first time Tuesday (Oct. 10) to talk about a challenge ahead.

Posted 3:10 p.m. Oct 11, 2017 — Updated 3:10 p.m. Oct 11, 2017

LAURA SIMON

FORT SMITH, AR — A soldier and boy, both amputees, met for the first time Tuesday (Oct. 10) to talk about a challenge ahead.

The two will participate in an obstacle course this weekend in Little Rock called the 2017 Warrior Dash.

"There are amputees everywhere, and they never should be treated differently," said David Samson, a 14-year-old amputee. "Most the time they're not. They're regular people."

The boy has never known what it's like to have two legs.

"I lost circulation when I was in my mother's stomach, so they had to amputate at birth," Samson explained.

He got his first prosthetic at Hanger Clinic in Fort Smith when he was a toddler.

"For a long time, since I was about nine, I only had a walking leg, and Kevin Carroll sponsored my first running blade, and ever since then I've been in sports, and I've been active," Samson said.

He runs track and cross country at Butterfield Trail Middle School and plays soccer. While Samson has been an amputee his whole life, Arkansas National Guard Sgt. Bryce Cobb, 24, had to get a below the knee amputation after a motorcycle incident during April 2015.

"I joined the National Guard when I was 17," Cobb said. "I lost my leg on the way home from a funeral detail, and so it is considered service connected."

He will find out if he gets to stay in the Arkansas National Guard next month.

Hanger Clinic was able to get Cobb a special leg he could use for training.

"I don't have to get a blade foot like you see on TV... It's just an everyday foot that I can do pretty much anything in," Cobb explained.

Soon after getting his prosthetic, he got involved with an organization called Operation Enduring Warrior.

"What they do is they take wounded service members through obstacle course races," Cobb said.

A Warrior Dash is happening Saturday, Oct. 14, in Cabot.

Cobb called Micah Saterfield, the manager of Hanger Clinic to find someone to do the obstacle with him, and that's why Bryce and David met for the first time Tuesday for a joint prosthetic follow up appointment before the big race.

"I am so confident in both of them," Saterfield commented.

Cobb added, "He's probably going to kick my butt this weekend."

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