Top News

When amputee Alex Young wanted a prosthetic running leg, he didn’t have far to look. Amazingly, the 45 year old from Blandford in Dorset, MADE his own prosthetic leg from scratch. Instead of costing him upto £25k, which is what it would cost to buy privately, making his own homemade leg cost him just £150. Now he is set to run 5k to raise money for Dorset County hospital, which he will run on his new homemade leg.

Alex, whose partner Sarah Bawden, 45, is a florist, said: "I’ve never built a prosthetic leg before. I had to work out the design, then putting it all together was relatively easy. I had a big box of parts, and it was like playing with mechano….putting together lots of nuts and bolts."

Alex sourced all the parts online - including buying a metal tube and rubber grip from Amazon. He started building it in October, and finished last month. He said: "It really helped mentally with my recovery to keep my mind active after losing my leg like that."

• I ride a mobility scooter - this one hack will make choosing yours a breeze

Alex had already lost his middle toe in July 2024, after he scuffed the underneath of his left foot on the swimming pool tiles whilst on holiday in Turkey. He developed two massive blisters, which developed gangrene, and eventually he had to have his toe amputated because of it. Eventually that healed after three months, but he’d also previously broken his right ankle when he was in his 20’s which hadn’t reset properly, and he underwent an operation in May last year to reconstruct it.

Afterwards he was in a cast for 15 weeks, but developed osteomyelitis - a potentially deadly bone infection that caused him severe pain. Alex, a former engineer for 15 years, said: "They gave me two options. I could either wear a full length leg cast for a year and be suspended with no movement at all, or I could have it amputated.

"I’d been in pain with it for nearly five years caused by that ankle break from years ago, and even if I had the leg brace for a year, surgeons said I still had a 75 per cent chance of losing the leg anyway, so I decided to have it amputated."

The leg was amputated in August last year and it was such a relief for Alex to feel no pain when he woke up. He said: "The pain had been so constant for the last five years, it was completely draining. So to be able to wake up for the first time pain free felt amazing. I didn’t have my leg anymore, but I didn’t have any pain, which was the most important thing to me."

After spending six and a half week in the hospital’s rehabilitation ward, he was allowed home. They had provided him with a NHS prosthetic leg, but he wanted to also have a special running blade . He said: "I wanted to learn to run, as I wanted to run to raise funds for the hospital so I can give something back. The NHS are amazing, but they are restricted on what funding they have, so the options are either to go privately and it can cost up to 25k for a running leg.

"Or the other option is to make your own. I couldn’t afford to buy one, so I decided I’d make my own. I’ve bought parts which would normally cost thousands of pounds for minimal money, and made my own. I scoured auction sites and the internet to source the parts. You don’t have to be down about losing a leg. It’s an awful thing to lose, but with the right attitude you can go forward. I’m quite a determined person, so I was never going to let it stop me doing what I wanted to do."

After sourcing the parts, which included buying a second hand prosthetic leg from Ebay to see how the mechanism worked, Alex set to designing his own leg. He began in October and finished his design last month. He said: "The tensioned hydraulic part gives spring and cushioning. The top part is just the metalwork which connects to the socket and the socket it the most important part. It felt strange when I put it on at first, because its a bit longer than what I was used to. But its actually really comfortable."

And next on his list is to design and build a prosthetic leg for swimming. He added: "I’m a determined person and I was never going to let anything stop me doing what I wanted to do."

• A spring-back carbon foot, for £40
• One hydraulic calf, for £35
• A metal tube from Amazon for £11
• Two reverse pyramid connectors for £22 from a parts website - they are a specialised hardware component made of metal or plastic, designed to join pipes or tubes at precise angles and are made to withstand body weight.
• Rubber grip for the sole, from Amazon at £10

• Dad with 'nothing left to live for' after wife dies saved by astonishing twist of fate