Amputee Alex Young builds running leg with parts found online

A former engineer who underwent a life-saving amputation is building his own prosthetic leg so he can learn to run again to raise money for the hospital that treated him.

Alex Young from Blandford, Dorset, developed osteomyelitis – a potentially deadly bone infection that caused him severe pain. He opted to have his leg removed below the knee in August.

With running prostheses costing tens of thousands of pounds, he embarked on designing and building his own from cut-price components he found online.

His target is to run 5km (3.1 miles) to raise money for Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester.

Young, who previously ran the award-winning Ginger Viking cocktail bar in Blandford, also worked for 15 years as an engineer.

After spending six-and-a-half weeks in the hospital’s Purbeck ward, he said he wanted to give something back to staff and set his sights on learning to run again to raise money.

He said: “The NHS are amazing but they are restricted on what funding they have so the options are either go private and it can cost you up to £25,000 for a proper running leg or you can do what I’m doing and scour auction sites and find bits and you have a play and make your own.

“I’ve bought parts which would normally cost thousands for minimal money and designed my own running leg.

“It’s a bit like playing with a Meccano set. You can add bits and take bits away and do pretty much what you want, if you’ve got the parts.”

Young is already making progress towards his target distance. “I’m up to about 800m at the moment,” he said.

And he is also designing a second prosthesis – this time a propulsion leg for swimming.

“I think it’s showing that you don’t have to be down about losing a leg – it’s a horrific thing to lose but you’ve got to have the right attitude to go forward.

“I’m quite a determined person so I was never going to let that stop me doing what I wanted to do.”