BADER'S LITTLE FRIEND

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 21, 25 February 1942, Page 3

BADER'S LITTLE FRIEND

HAS ARTIFICIAL LEG AT 3V 2

A child of 3% is learning to walk again on an artificial leg made for him by the people who have been making a new pair for the legless flir ace, Wing-Commander Bader. He i.s a small boy named Ronnie Osmond, who lost a leg only a year or two after he first learned to walk. It was found difficult at first to get Ronnie to put his heart into learning to walk all over again. Then someone in the works had the Idea of giving him a miniature walking stick made of duralumin. Ronnie was fascinated with his little tubular stick and at once wanted to try it. Now his nurses notice that when walking by himself lie will sometimes change the stock from one hand to the other, sure proof that he can walk without it. The makers of the tiny legs are ns pleased as he is. They build and lit 5000 artificial legs a year, and Bader, their most famous patient, whose legs have been supplied and repaired by them since 1934, visited their fitting room only a fortnight before he had to bale out of his machine over Occupied' France. His new pair of legs havo now been handed over bj' the makers to the British Ministry of Pensions who have flown them to Lisbon for delivery throughout .the International Red Cross at Geneva. It will be recalled that when Bader landed in France he broke one of his artificial legs and a spare e:ne was flown over the Channel by his R.A.F. comrades. Since then he has escaped for four days from the prison hospital in which he is held.