What does it take to turn a life challenge into a lifelong passion for sports and coaching?
On this episode of We’re Not Stumped, host Mike Bolland talks with Marc Burkom, a double below-knee amputee born with fibular hemimelia who has built a life around athletics, coaching, and helping others reach their potential.
Marc shares how his parents made the difficult decision to amputate his feet when he was just two months old — a choice that allowed him to grow up active in sports like soccer, baseball, and basketball.
Today, Marc works in coaching education and advocates for expanding opportunities for adaptive and amputee athletes. In this conversation, Marc and Mike discuss growing up with prosthetics, the role sports played in building confidence, coaching amputee soccer, adaptive sports like amputee basketball, and how prosthetic technology has evolved over the years.
Marc also shares why amputee athletes should be treated as athletes first — not charity cases — and his vision for future prosthetic innovation.
Mike also introduces Enable Review, a platform where amputees can share honest experiences about prosthetists to help others navigating limb loss find better care.
This episode is a powerful conversation about resilience, sport, leadership, and redefining what’s possible.
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After losing control on an icy road in Calgary, Reid Robinson crashed into a tree and suffered devastating injuries to his lower leg. What followed were two and a half years of recovery, 13 surgeries, broken surgical hardware, bone infections, and a difficult decision between amputation and trying once more to save his leg. While recovering, Reid realized that none of the available mobility devices gave him the freedom he needed. So, despite having no welding experience, he taught himself by watching online videos and built his first leg brace from aluminum, crutches, and an IKEA cutting board. That garage-built prototype eventually became the X-Leg, a hands-free knee crutch designed to help people with lower-leg injuries stay active and independent during recovery.
Angie Sandow was born with one hand and Poland syndrome—but that hasn't stopped her from riding motorcycles, playing guitar, performing onstage, and finding plenty of reasons to laugh along the way. In this episode of We’re Not Stumped, Mike Bolland reconnects with Angie for a candid and often funny conversation about growing up with a limb difference, dealing with bullying and unwanted attention, and learning to turn difficult experiences into something positive. Angie shares how music became an important part of her life, including performing with bands and using a custom prosthetic guitar holder. She also talks about becoming a one-handed motorcycle rider and the modifications that allow her to ride, including moving the throttle to the left side.
In this episode of We’re Not Stumped, host Mike Bolland talks with Vincent about his extraordinary recovery—relearning how to walk, talk, eat, and handle everyday tasks most of us take for granted. Vincent shares what it was really like to gradually wake from a coma, the difficult prognosis his family faced, and the extensive damage to his skull that eventually required a custom 3D-printed implant. He also discusses the people who refused to give up on him, particularly his wife and family, who lived through weeks of uncertainty while Vincent was unconscious. Through his recovery, Vincent came to see resilience not simply as something you're born with, but as something you can develop and strengthen. That experience also helped shape the ideas behind his book, Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done
