Quite the heroic deed, get to know the guy who has helped thousands of animals with mobility issues get back on their feet.
Meet this Virginia animal prosthetics specialist who provides animals with restricted mobility a second chance at life by developing unique mechanical limbs—giving them the chance to walk again.
Through his charity, Bionic Pets, Derrick Campana, 43, has improved the lives of approximately 35,000 animals, including dogs, goats, cows, camels, raccoons and elephants.
“All animals deserve to walk and enjoy a beautiful life, just like people,” Campana, who appears in the television series “The Wizard of Paws,” told The Epoch Times. “All these technology, all these things that we have, animals should have.”
Campana’s aim to aid animals in distress began roughly 18 years ago. One day, the owner of a black Labrador retriever arrived into her workplace, where she builds prosthetics for people, and told her that she wanted a prosthesis for her dog, Charles. At that time, Campana did not know or had seen an animal with a prosthesis, for which she was amused.
Rather than ditch the concept totally, though, Campana took a week and built it from scratch.
“It took me a long time to construct my first device since it was so strange to me, I didn’t know what I was doing,” he added. “While I had all the skills to create human prosthetics, it was extremely different.”
“In a manner I had to develop the whole process and figure out what would work good for an animal,” he continued.
While it was something he had never done before, fitting Charles with a prosthesis brought Campana enormous satisfaction since it functioned wonderfully for him.
After the success of the initial device he made, Campana proceeded to study more to see if anybody else in the world was doing this and discovered that no one else was producing prosthetics for animals at the time. Consequently he instantly began a firm, which developed to become an international concern.
“Everything I learned on the human side, I wanted to offer to the veterinary side, and it was simply this fully open market,” he added. “I am also an entrepreneur at heart, and I adore making things with my hands.”
