Garth Hudson lost his left leg in a boating accident when he was 11 years old.
At 17, the young rancher who lives near Armstrong, B.C., wanted to thank those who had helped him through his personal challenges and decided to donate the sale proceeds from his 4-H steer to the Shriners Hospital in Portland, Oregon.
With family and community backing, Hudson wrote letters and gathered support to sell his 1,400 pound purebred Black Angus.
The buyer was Beachcomber Home and Leisure, which paid $3.25 a pound.
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“It was a personal thing I did. I owe a lot to my grandfather. He is the one who really helped me with letters of support,” Hudson said from his family ranch.
“Due to all the support that I have received, I would now like to give back because another child will need the same support some day that I have received,” he wrote in a letter to The Western Producer.
Hudson has made smaller donations but decided to say a bigger thank you for the months of help he received at the hospital.
Next year he graduates from high school and 4-H, which he has belonged to for eight years.
He plans to attend Olds College in Olds, Alta., and study agriculture technology.
The accident happened in Alberta during a family vacation when he fell off the back of a boat and got caught in the propeller.
He ended up at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton for a month, where most of his leg had to be amputated.
The next step in his long journey to recovery was help from the Vernon Shriners and Don Raffan of Valley Auction near Armstrong.
They organized a benefit and put him and his family in touch with the Portland hospital because it was the only facility that could fit him with a prosthetic leg specialized to his type of amputation.
He makes trips back to Portland for refits as he grows.
“I have to keep going back because I keep growing. I go back to the Shriners’ Hospital until I am 21,” he said.
The hospital’s expertise with prosthetics has allowed Hudson to play sports, ride a bike and his horse, participate in 4-H and work at a local dairy where he milks cows in the morning and evening shifts.
“I can do everything I used to do,” he said.
