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Double Amputee-Colby Liston inspires People|Lost Legs in Accident

Kansas City - Normally, a double amputee takes almost two years to get back out on the track and compete. Colby Liston did it in nine months.

At 5-foot-9, 135 pounds, Colby Liston willed himself into becoming an All-State defensive back at Derby High School in Derby, Kansas. He is dubbed as a big-time overachiever, faster than he should've been, and stronger than he probably should've been. He excelled in the 400 and the long jump. But a horrifying twist in his life unexpectedly happened.

One night, Colby was out later in Lawrence with pals and while trying to get into the back of a friend's parked SUV, another car slammed into him from behind. His legs wound up pinned between the two vehicles.

His father, Matt Liston turned emotional upon looking at his son in the hospital. Matt Liston is a cop with the kind of backbone that could prop up a strip mall. But this was his son, lying there, half-conscious, with nothing but bandages and linen where two healthy legs had been just a day earlier.

When Colby woke up, he directly asked his father on why he is lying in the hospital. Matt narrated the whole story but Colby could not recall at all.

"I don't remember much at all," Colby says.

Dad can't forget. The phone call. The hospital. The waiting. The verdict. The conversation.

Then slowly Colby noticed that he doesn't have a cast.

"They're gone Colby," Matt said. The doctors had to amputate them both, just above the knees. The injury was so severe at the time, we were pretty sure the legs would be amputated at the knees. The surgeon was great and he knew that this was going to be a devastating thing but there was nothing we could do.

And Colby was quiet.

Then he said something that was very typical Colby;

"That's all right. That guy in the Olympics (Oscar Pistorius, the "Blade Runner" from South African who ran the 400 at the 2012 London Olympics on prosthetic legs), he just ran the 400 and he had no legs."

Matt's been a community presence with the Derby police force for years. Family and friends responded to the crisis in kind, launching a "Team Liston" page on Facebook last fall to track Colby's progress, selling T-shirts and setting up fundraisers to help defray costs.

Kansas basketball coach Bill Self called to wish him well. North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams, Self's predecessor in Lawrence, wrote a letter of support. The Royals' Alex Gordon sent over an autographed bat.

"People in the town kind of picked it up and ran with it," the elder Liston says. "It's unbelievable, the support in our town."

Strong-willed Man

In January, Colby was fitted for his first set of carbon-fiber running blades. The first five steps each day are the hardest, Colby says, but the rest is becoming routine. His everyday-set of prosthetics are computer-controlled, designed to react to his movements, anchored by a pair of hydraulic knees painted KU blue and red.

Liston underwent a bilateral boot camp in April, where he was drilled in how to function with prosthetics in a walking world. He can drive a car without a hand control. He's working 35-40 hours a week at a rec center in Derby. He'll go to the gym and lift weights, same as before. He'll hang out with friends on the weekend, same as before.

Normally, a double amputee takes almost two years to get back out on the track and compete. The younger Liston did it in nine months, running in the 14th annual Endeavor Games three weeks ago winning first in his age group in the 200 and 400 at the University of Central Oklahoma.

"It's different for everybody; everybody's recovery is different," says Colby, one of the star pupils at the Hanger Clinic in Oklahoma City. "I just learned faster than others. I think it just was getting out and doing it. "I didn't want to sit in the wheelchair anymore. It was just going and doing it. It was having the motivation to go out and do it."

Focus on what you can do. Not on what you can't.

When a knee injury ended his senior football season at Derby High prematurely, he switched to a mentoring role, coaching up his replacement,
cheering him on from the sidelines. To his coach's amazement, Colby's rehab went so quickly, he was able to participate in spring track.

"He has that drive — he's an athlete, it needs competition in his life," the coach says. "So this is kind of an outlet for him, to set some
goals and push his body to the limit. That's why his dad still does triathlons. He's got that ingrained in him."

"And he's doing this for him, but it's an inspiration for all of us," his old coach allows. "You look at Colby, and so many people do, and with the hand that he's been given, he could easily just sit down and feel sorry for himself. But that's just the total opposite of what he does. He does a lot more with what he has than what most people do with normal limbs."

"I mean, I like running, I enjoy running, but I also have other aspirations — to go to college, get a degree and start my career," Colby says. "I don't know which one would come first. (The Paralympics) is a long-term goal for me. But I still have a few years for that." Colby, who carried a 4.1 GPA in high school, is even re-enrolling at KU in the fall to pick back up where he'd left off.

Meanwhile, a few months back, Colby happened to be working out in Oklahoma City when he got wind of a news report: A local teen named Austin had been in a car accident, one that required amputation below one of his knees. A mutual contact at Hanger reached out and set up a meeting. Liston went down to OU Medical Center, "to perk him up, to kind of just give him some inside information that the doctors don't know about. So Colby took a deep breath and finally let it out. He told him that it would get better. Colby shared his motivation -- Focus on what you can do. Not on what you can't.  He also told him how to massage the end of his legs to relieve phantom pains. He told him how to cope with the urge to wriggle toes that are no longer there.

"Just knowing that there's somebody else out there that's in the same situation," Colby says. "They'll give you some advice. They'll give you some motivation. It's just peer support. "I know how much it helped me when I had someone visit me in the hospital. So I figured I could pass that on and do that for somebody else."

After all, God kept Colby Liston around for a reason.

Source: FoxSportsKansasCity