The only clue that Isaiah Lanphear was in a major accident two months earlier was the cast where his hand should have been.
Lanphear, a 5-year-old from Cecil who lost his hand in an accident last summer, was back to happily being a kid and playing football and other sports just two months after the incident thanks to a summer camp his grandparents, Joe and Lisa Lanphear, found.
Isaiah was back at the NubAbility Athletics Foundation All-Sport Summer Camp last month, joining 70 other kids from 24 states, all missing limbs, to learn athletic skills from the camp’s 30 coaches, all of whom are also missing limbs.
“There are no disabilities, just kids having fun and being just that, kids,” Lisa Lanphear said. “I don’t think any of us could ask for anything better.”
Lisa Lanphear said the skills Isaiah learned at the camp, from basics such as tying his shoes to playing football and fishing, were essential in his recovery.
“I cannot begin to tell you how life changed in just a few minutes,” she said. “What we have found is that, even through tragedy, good things can happen. Isaiah’s positive can-do attitude has been an inspiration to many people.”
The camp, for kids 4-17, is in its third year and offers training in several sports.
“Our coaches are all individuals who have succeeded at the high school, collegiate or advanced levels of their sport,” said Sam Kuhnert, NubAbility founder and baseball pitcher for Morthland College in West Frankfort, Illinois. “All of us know how it feels to have someone judge or doubt you because of a limb-difference, but we also know how it feels to prove the skeptics wrong. We want to help instill that same feeling in another generation of athletes.”
At this year’s camp, Isaiah focused on football, basketball and fishing.
Lisa Lanphear said she was worried about Isaiah fitting in but soon saw the positive impact the camp had.
“Would he understand this is his new world?” she said. “He did fit in and was too busy having fun to even think about this new world of limb-difference. A camp like NubAbility gives Isaiah and kids just like him a chance to bond.”
Those bonds will continue, as the Lanphears plan to have Isaiah continue going to the camp each year.
“I can’t see us not ever doing it,” Lisa Lanphear said. “I’m so amazed at the scope of work that NubAbility does, and the lives they impact. Not just ours, but so many kids.”
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