HIGH-TECH DEVICE: Ted

                                                             Drygas holds a prosthetic foot 

                                                                         used by athletes in this week’s

                                                                   Paralympic Games.          

FRiENDS & NEIGHBQRS

C section         Journal-News

Monday

August           12,1996 Rockland

Off to help special athletes in Atlanta

Starting Thursday, athletes from around the world will gather in Atlanta for a very special sporting event, the Xth Paralympic Games. The Paralympics are held two weeks after the Olympics to allow disabled athletes to compete at the same venue as their able-bodied counterparts. More than 3,500 athletes from 122 nations will try for medals in 15 events. Competitors will have coaches to guide them and family and friends to cheer them. They will also have support from volunteers, including Ted Drygas of Nanuet, who helps make and fit artificial limbs for amputees and people born without limbs. He arrives in Atlanta today. During the games, Drygas will be director of the Welcome Center, where athletes will register their prosthetic limbs and have them inspected. If an athlete’s limb should suffer damage, Drygas and his team will make repairs, even if it means ordering and having parts shipped overnight. Drygas is no stranger to volunteer duties. He has, for example, served on the board of directors for the Rockland Independent Living Center, an agency devoted to helping those with physical disabilities. He has also volunteered his services at other sports events where competitors are disabled, including the New York State Disabled Games. Drygas first became interested in designing and fitting limbs after meeting survivors of the school bus-train crash that occurred in 1972 on Gilchrest Road in Congers. Five students from Valley Cottage who attended Nyack High School were killed and one lost a limb. Drygas knows an artificial limb can change a person’s life for the better, enabling them to resume activities they once thought wore lost to them, including playing sports. “What sports does for amputees is get them over their disability and get them back into a more normal life,” Drygas was saying the other day. “That’s so uplifting for people” The Paralympics also illustrate an important point. “Amputees can do everything,” Drygas says. “They can be active. They can climb a ladder. They don’t have to be shut-ins. Drygas and his wife, Donna, are parents of Kimberly, 6, Brittany, 3, and MIchael, 4 months. Opening ceremonies for the Paralympics are at 8 p.m. Thursday. None of the networks have plans to broadcast it. The games continue through Aug. 25.