back on his legs

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Eight years ago Yinon Cohen, an IDF soldier who had been wounded in a training accident, lay in Rambam after a double amputation of his two legs. When the hospital team told him they’d dance at his wedding, Yinon, in a haze of shock, pain and misery, didn’t believe a word of it. Last month Yinon was married. After he broke the glass with a firm stomp, Yinon hit the floor with his bride, friends and family – and the Rambam orthopedics staff.

By Roberta Neiger, ProText

On February 13, 2003, a commander in the IDF Golani Brigade accidentally shot an RPG rocket into a group of basic trainees. Thirteen soldiers were wounded, three critically. In the accident, Private Yinon Cohen, 19 years old, lost both his legs.

Yinon Cohen breaking the glass at his wedding
Cochav Hafakot

Yinon lay in Rambam Department of Orthopedics for three months, during which time he underwent 32 operations. Of that period he remembers both great pain and great devotion.

Yinon’s physician, Dr Doron Norman, Rambam’s Deputy Director of the Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology "B", conducted nearly all the surgeries, and was involved beyond the confines of the operating room. Yinon, who says he cannot describe his feelings about Dr Norman in words, begins to talk. “Dr Norman was with me days and nights. If I needed him, he would leave his Friday evening meal and come to the hospital. One Saturday morning I asked for him, and he showed up with his tallit still in hand. He could have said, ‘this can wait’, but he never did.”

Yinon Cohen during a wheelchair basketball game
Noam Moskovitz

“Dr Norman and the Rambam team were with me during the most difficult moments of my life. They helped me to get through it all. I have no words for their understanding and desire to give,” says Yinon. “I was a 19-year old kid, and didn’t know how to cope with my situation, but they did – way beyond the medical aspects. In Rambam I was great pain, but you forget the bad. Only the goodness of people remains.”

For Dr Norman, who did his military service in an elite paratroop unit, soldiers have a special place. “Here was this young guy with a very serious injury and I wanted to do everything possible to save his knees. Having a leg amputation under the knee is much easier than losing a whole leg. Movement is much simpler and life is different altogether,” says the doctor.

“Yinon’s case was unusual: his wound was very high, up to the knee. As doctors, we had to choose between doing a full leg amputation and beginning rehabilitation or battling for everything, for every bit of bone and muscle.”

“I told him we would fight for every centimeter. He knew it would take many procedures, but he agreed. I took him into the operating room every day, and he fought along with me.” The doctor and his patient did win, and both knees were saved.

Undoubtedly, medical prowess, boldness and high motivation – on all sides – account for Yinon’s success. “To succeed at almost anything, you must be driven,” says Dr Norman, who tries to convey this to both young doctors and his own children. “You must go beyond what you think you can do,” he says.

Now a teacher of high school civics and history, Yinon leads an active, if not extreme, lifestyle. He has done more high-adventure sports, like rappelling, skiing, skydiving and scuba diving than most people who have both their legs. He has travelled for protracted periods, with friends or alone, in India, Thailand, South America and Europe. “It’s a little more difficult to get around, but I’m used to it. I always take along my two legs and two spares.”

Yinon plays with a Haifa wheelchair basketball league, which made it to the European championships. Off the court, the team visits schools, where they describe their handicaps and their drive. “I want to show young people that disabled people are not miserable. You can fix problems, you can overcome. Someone like me can change their perceptions altogether.”

While in the hospital Yinon was propped up by strangers who had also suffered trauma. One visitor, Yossi Hochman, had survived the 1978 “Coastal Road Massacre,” in which terrorists highjacked a bus, resulting in the deaths of 35 Israelis. In the attack Yossi had lost not only his legs, but his wife and two children. “Yossi came into my room and showed me how he could jump and skip. He gave me perspective, and the understanding that I too, would walk,” says Yinon.

Eager to give back, Yinon visits Rambam patients, particularly soldiers, who have sustained amputations.

“I have fulfilled all my dreams: travelling, being active and now getting married,” says Yinon. “And standing under the chupa, and seeing Dr Norman was one of the most exciting moments.”

“I felt very emotional at the wedding,” says Dr Norman. “It represented the greatest satisfaction a doctor can have. This is the reason you go through difficult studies, work long hours and don’t sleep at night.”

“I have so much to say but I don’t have the words, reiterated Yinon. “The doctors and nurses at Rambam do their job with joy and love: there is no more than that.”