Write to Dan

Mail can be sent to Dan at:

Lt Dan Berschinski
PO Box 4180
6900 Georgia Ave NW
Washington DC 20307


A journey of a thousand miles...

Dan has begun the process of learning how to walk again using his prosthetic legs. Regaining this skill is something akin to learning to become an expert skier, and relies upon a similar mix of physical conditioning and technologically advanced gear. At this phase of the process Dan and the technicians in the MATC are more concerned with the latter than the former: the videos below show Dan walking primarily in order to give the technicians a better sense of what changes need to be made in order to better fit the legs to his body size and gait.

It’s a complicated process, as a small change to the length or angle of one leg inevitably necessitates changes to the other. In several of the videos you’ll see Dan catch a foot on the ground as he begins to swing a leg, or the knee of his C-leg refuse to bend due to inputs received from sensors in the foot. Learning how to overcome these kinds of problems through a mix of practice and equipment refinement will take many more months, but here are the first steps: