Cheer Up: You Can Run Without Toes

“I lost five toes, but sharing and volunteering fill the places of the part of my feet I lost.”

There seems to be no problem for Park Jong-am, 55, a Korean immigrant to Australia, who is participating in the 2007 Seoul International Marathon or the 78th Dong-a Marathon held in Seoul on March 18 for the first time in 35 years.

He is in a good shape with tanned skin and stands at a height of 181 centimeters.

He was once so good at athletics that he ran in the 5,000-meter race in the National Athletics Tournament when he was only a high school student. He also liked marathon so much that he completed a full course marathon 16 times.

These days, Park is a second-degree disabled person, however, as a result of a work injury: one-third of his right foot, including his toes, was cut off in an accident. The size of his right shoe is 190 mm while the left is 290mm.

He migrated to Australia back in 1981 and was in charge of supervising on-site construction at a multinational oil company. But Park, who was healthy enough to run as a player in his company football team, faced a daunting challenge in 2000.

He said to “bring down” instead of “lift” when giving orders by radio to a crane driver, who was moving a massive oil tank. Immediately, the tank, above his head, fell right ahead of him.

The tank pressed hard his right foot. Although his colleagues drew his foot out after 6 hours of rescue work, the bones of his toes were smashed that they couldn’t be put together. Eventually his doctor had to remove the five toes.

After that, he had part of his right foot cut off four more times due to infection.

He said, “The doctor said that I could barely walk only with the help of a crutch or a cane even if I went through rehabilitation. I cried every night in despair, wondering why I had to suffer the difficulty.”

One day, his wife suggested to him, who avoid meeting people, that they work as a volunteer at a catholic church.

It was difficult for him to take even a step at that time. But after the work, he realized that he was healthier than those who had more serious physical problems than himself.

His condition became better from depending on a wheelchair to a crutch to a cane, as he got rehab courses such as underwater treatment or hiking. In five years of rehabilitation, he could at last walk normally.

“At first, people told me I could never walk as well as before. But now I can walk, run and even run in a marathon. There’s nothing we can’t do if we have determination.”

Park thought if he could walk without the help of a cane, he could also run without it. After ceaseless efforts over a year, he can now run as well as an ordinary person.

People can’t walk if they lose one little toe, just 1% of our whole body. But Park overcame the difficulty with his strong will.

“I will not run for a good score in this marathon. I will just run to give hope to the challenged and to express my happiness that I am able to run.”

He plans to run again to raise a fund to help the disabled starting from Busan to Seoul from March 1 to 15.

Park, who lives with his family running an engineering company in Australia, began to prepare for the marathon from December last year and came to Korea on February 22.

He already donated around 7.3 million won to a volunteer group before the marathon. He will raise money by running or riding a bicycle across 16 cities for 15 days.

Park said he will run every year in Korea to give hope and encourage the disabled.

For information on donations please contact World vision 02) 2078-7000, www. Worldvision.or.kr

creating@donga.com