Biography

Van Phillips was born in 1954 and is still alive today. He is know as the American inventor who invented artificial prosthetics.He became an amputee himself at age 21, losing his leg below his knee.The limitations that becoming an amputee is what motivated him to create artifical prosthetics because he belived that just because he did not look like everyone else he didnt deserve to have any implications. He attended Northwestern University Medical School majoring in biomedical engineering and design. He worked as a biomedical design engineer at the University of Utah working on his product. He later created his own company in 1984 called Flex-Foot Incorporated. In 1999 he established Second Wind, a non-profit organization to provide inexpensive and resistant prostheses to amputees around the world. Also, he is now working to create a prosthetic leg for land mine victims in developing countries.In 1998 he received the Brian Blatchford Memorial Prize from the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics.