Cheers erupted on the sidelines of a practice field outside RFK Stadium as Sandy Jean Louis Louiseme, the youngest member of a Haitian soccer team composed entirely of amputees, dribbled toward the goal.
Amputee soccer has rhythms, and risks, all its own, which became clear when Louiseme collided with the goalie of the U.S. National Amputee Soccer Team, crutches flying in every direction. Only after Louiseme sat up with a smile on his face did the crowd exhale.
Louiseme’s squad, Team Zaryen, scrimmaged with the U.S. national team Tuesday as part of a five-day “Haitian Inspiration Tour,” in which the amputees, victims of last year’s earthquake, held clinics in amputee soccer for U.S. service members who have lost legs while stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq. The clinics, held at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda on Monday and the RFK practice field Tuesday, were the team’s way of thanking the U.S. military for its work evacuating and caring for victims of the disaster.
Amputee soccer was founded 30 years ago in Seattle by Don Bennett, a sportsman who lost his leg in a boating accident at age 42. Now, people who have lost a limb play the sport around the world, on crutches. All prosthetics are left on the sidelines to level the playing field.
Justin Masellas, 25, a Marine sergeant who lost his right leg below the knee in July after a rocket blast in Afghanistan, watched the action Tuesday. Although he had never been a soccer fan, his opinion changed after attending two of Team Zaryen’s clinics this week. Now, he said, he’s ready to challenge his two-legged friends to a game of soccer, “the amputee way.”
“It gets a lot more complicated when you have to use one less leg,” he said.
Team Zaryen’s trip was sponsored by Knights of Columbus, a Catholic charitable organization, and Project Medishare, a nonprofit organization based in Miami that helped found Team Zaryen in September 2010.
Prosthetic arms and legs have transformed the lives of hundreds of Haitians who lost limbs in the earthquake, including Team Zaryen members, said Jason Miller, a physical therapist who directs the rehabilitation program at Project Medishare’s Hospital Bernard Mevs in Port-au-Prince.
Historically, amputees there have been stigmatized, Miller said. “Disabled people have always been on the fringe of society in Haiti,” he said.
Many of those injured during the earthquake didn’t want their limbs amputated, said Adam Finnieston, a prosthetist who has worked with Project Medishare to fit Haitian amputees with mechanical limbs, including all Team Zaryen players. “They would risk their lives to keep their limbs,” Finnieston said.
Mackenson Pierre, 28, was trapped for three days under the rubble of a collapsed school in Port-au-Prince and lost a leg to infection after he was rescued. An avid soccer player before the earthquake, he said he was “overwhelmed” with emotion after losing his leg, especially while sitting on the sidelines watching his friends play the game he loved.
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