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Chase Brown: The Prosthesist Dad

People come to Chase Brown when they need a hand, or an arm or a leg or a foot.

As a prosthesist, he gives amputees the ability to do anything they want to do.

“I’m really passionate about what I do and so my personal life kind of spills over in to that,” said Brown.

On his 14th birthday, Brown’s parents took him and some friends to a skate park in Dallas.

“There was a kid there my age, 13 or 14, and he was one of the best kids in the park, doing all the ramps and tricks and all this stuff,” he said. “My friends and I were kind of standing around watching him and we noticed that he had stickers all over his leg.”

Brown went to the ramp the boy was skateboarding on to get a closer look.

“It turns out that he was wearing a prosthesis from the knee down. He was a below-the-knee amputee,” he said.

It was the first time Brown had seen anyone with a prosthesis and he was fascinated.

“I always thought, ‘man, it would be cool to help kids or help people do the things they enjoy,’” he said.

After getting married and starting a career in the business world, Brown decided to change paths and go back to school to learn how to be a prosthesist. In school he was chatting with a classmate and Brown told him the story about the skateboarder.

“I told the story and the guy kind of looked at me and said, ‘you know, when was that?’ He pointed to a poster on the wall at this guy named Jon Comer,” Brown said. “He was a pro skateboarder now and he was my age. He used to skate at that place and he’s like, ‘It’s got to be Jon. We treated him here. We’ve been making his legs since he was two or three.’”

Brown’s passion for his career reaches beyond the walls of his office in to his own home.

A few years ago, Brown’s wife, Megan, suggested they adopt a child from Ethiopia.

“She found out that Ethiopia was open to foreign adoption and she said, ‘I think we should really do this’ and I was kind of taken aback, of course. So we thought about it and prayed about it and decided to do it,” said Brown.

Then he took it a step further.

“I kind of had it on my heart and told her, ‘if we’re going to do this, why don’t we adopt a kid that I can help? A child who needs a prosthesis or who needs an amputation,’” he said.

The adoption agency never received that request before, but told the couple they would keep their options open. A week later, they got a call about a 16-month old boy who was born with a leg deformity on his left leg. His name was Elias.

“He’s my pride and joy,” said Brown.

The family recently returned from the Endeavor Games, an event for athletes with physical disabilities.

“As a prothesist, it was really cool. It was fun, but as a dad, it was incredible just to see him interact with all those kids and just to experience that,” said Brown. “They would look at each other’s legs and be like, ‘what do you have on your leg?’”

Brown said Elias knows that he’s different from other children, but that doesn’t stop him from being a kid.

“As my son, we have fun together and we go swimming together and we go hiking and go camping together and stuff like that, and then I think, oh yeah, well he’s also an amputee,” said Brown. “There’s not much that stops him, let’s put it that way.”

Having a son with a prosthesis helps Brown connect with patients.

“I can every once in a while say, ‘oh, my son wears this just like you,’” he said. “They realize that I understand a little bit more than maybe somebody else, even general insurance stuff I know about because I deal with it on a daily basis, not just with patients, but with him.”

Brown said Elias has become an irreplaceable part of his life.

“He’s my favorite patient, obviously.”

Chase Brown's story was originally published in the San Marcos Daily Record on July 15, 2009