He Lost A Leg In Combat, Now Wyoming Vet Teaches Others To Adapt And Overcome

Gary wanted desperately to ski black diamonds. However, as a 26-year-old cognitive skier with the mind of an 8-year-old, he faced more challenges than most and was constantly falling over even on the bunny slopes.

Adaptive ski instructor Karl Milner, from Gillette, had faced his own challenges to ski since Milner is an amputee and taught himself to ski with one leg and a prosthetic. He understands what Gary was facing and was not going to let this lack of coordination stand in Gary’s way.

Milner was determined that his student would achieve his dream of hitting the black diamonds.

“Gary’s biggest problem was he would constantly look down at his skis,” Milner said.

As Gary looked down, the aspiring skier would start to bend over. Then he would be off balance and fall. Looking for creative ways to help him stand correctly on his skis, Milner learned to ski backwards and put a dinosaur on his helmet because Gary was just nuts about dinosaurs. 

“I was always reminding him, hey, eyes on the dinosaur,” Milner said. “That kept him upright, standing up in a good ski position, looking at the dinosaur. Then I could lead him down the hill that way.”

That was five years ago and when you flash forward to today, Gary is an Olympic champion in the Special Olympics. He's skiing independently with the nickname Double Black Diamond because those are his favorite runs. 

Milner told Cowboy State Daily that he credits his ability to teach these students because he understands them.

“The average instructor would struggle to teach an adaptive skier, whereas an adaptive instructor kind of understands where they're coming from and where they've been,” he said. 

Milner, 60, works with those who normally would not get a chance to hit the slopes as well as first time skiers and snowboarders of all ages.

His students range from amputees, like himself, to the blind and people with cognitive disabilities. They are all ages including preschoolers and seniors with walkers. 

Milner customizes his lessons to each student and is constantly coming up with creative ways to help them ski on their own, whether it is first time skiers or those who have severe handicaps. 

War Injury

Milner knows all about resilience and what it takes to get on skis when you face challenges.

From 1984 until 1987, he was in combat in Honduras fighting against the Contras for control of the Panama Canal. He described his mission as just trying to keep the bad out of America. 

It was there that he took a bullet that went in the knee and came out the ankle. The doctors tried to save his leg, but he kept getting bad infections and the pain was extreme. 

“They finally decided to amputate,” he said. “And I've been better off without it than I ever was with the original leg.”

Wheelchair Bound

When he first lost his leg, he spent five years in a wheelchair because he had untreated diabetes that prevented his amputated leg from healing. 

“When they amputate your leg, they don't stitch the skin shut,” he said. “They leave it open and basically you build new skin as it heals.”

With the untreated diabetes, Milner was not making new skin, had severe infections and ballooned in weight from 220 pounds to 498. His first prosthetic was literally a socket to fit through his leg that attached to a pipe and a rigid foot. He couldn't even walk in it because he was too heavy and there was no give to it at all. 

He struggled until finally his medical team started treating him for diabetes. That led to him losing the weight he gained and regaining his independence. 

Today he can get prosthetics that fit his active lifestyle.

“I go parachuting and paragliding and hang gliding,” Milner said. “It's a special leg for each activity and so it can be a juggling act.”

Designing Own Foot

Before all these specialized prosthetics were available, Milner began designing his own feet and would send the designs off to be built. He would then get back a prototype and every foot would just get better.

“With technology now, the feet are wonderful,” he said. “You can get feet with angles. You can get feet that are robotically controlled off your nervous system. You can get feet for just about any activity you want to do.”

In the last 15 years, Milner has personally witnessed the development of what he calls phenomenal feet. His first foot that he got for skiing could not control the ski so he took matters into his own hands. 

He redesigned some of the pin locations for the shock on that foot and flipped the shock upside down from what they had it, which pitched his knee forward more into a natural ski position. This made it so he could get weight over the tip of the ski.

“The companies I worked with ended up using my design to improve their own feet,” Milner said. “And now they've got skiers all over the world using them. They've become just a wonderful ski foot.”

Teaching Adaptive Skiing

It was Milner’s own experience learning to ski that eventually led him to teaching other adaptive skiers in Wyoming and Colorado. 

When he first learned to ski with the prosthetic, it was a struggle. He had joined Ignite Adaptive Sports, a specialized skiing program in Colorado. While learning to ski, Milner broke his knee and his prosthetics. He hit lift poles, rocks, and trees. 

“I was being taught by normal skiers, people with two legs,” he explained. “They didn't have any handicap. They were doing their best, and they could teach me the fundamentals, but that's about it.”

Milner had to discover on his own how to ski when you don't have any feeling in your leg. Seeing his success, his instructors encouraged him to help another vet with an amputation since he could describe what he was doing himself.

After helping his first student learn to ski, Milner went on to get his level one as an adaptive ski instructor. He said it snowballed from there. He is one of 200 volunteer ski instructors with Ignite and wanted to expand the program into Wyoming. 

The managers at the non-profit Antelope Butte in the Bighorn Mountains were receptive to his teaching because it fit their mission of getting everyone out to ski. 

The Students

Milner explains that he tailors each lesson to the type of disability or age of his student. He will teach them at their cognitive age level if they're physically handicapped. He has had children who were born without their legs and amputees who wanted to ski three track rather than on two skis. 

“I've had them to where they're so physically challenged that they're in a wheelchair where you take them out and sit ski,” he said. “I've had them where they don't have an arm, which is really easy. They're pretty much normal skiers at that point because you don't need poles or arms to ski although it does affect their balance.”

For his blind skiers, Milner joins a team of instructors who work together to guide the skier down the hill. The lead instructor and blind skier would both have headphones and microphones in their helmets. The instructor is calling commands to the blind student when to left turn and right turn, leading him down the slope. 

Another instructor will ski in front so that there's no hazards for the blind student to hit. Another two instructors will ski behind, basically keeping other skiers from getting close to the blind skier. By calling those commands, the blind student will build a kinesthetic feeling of the proper turn. Once they learn how to do this, the instructor can then take them on nearly any run they want to go on.

Milner also teachers older stroke victims and others who use a walker how to gain their freedom through skiing on the slopes with a slider.

“I teach just about any kind of skiing or snowboarding you can think of,” Milner said. “It’s just important to get them out on the snow.”

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.