Jeff Sprinkle ’90, the owner of Sprinkle Prosthetic in Spartanburg, speaks to students at his alma mater about the experience of losing his left leg below the knee and building a future helping others like him.

Presbyterian College alumnus Jeff Sprinkle ’91 remembers the day that forever changed his life.

On Sept. 7, 1985, the Riverside High School sophomore cut grass the Saturday after playing in his first varsity football game. Like many teenagers, the future was far off for the self-proclaimed “wild child.”

It all changed the microsecond the lawnmower he pushed hit a water meter, and the blade flew off. At that moment, Sprinkle’s future turned sharper than the metal that nearly took his left foot off.

“My first instinct was to run,” he said. “Well, obviously I fell. I hopped to the back door. My mom was in the kitchen. My stepdad was in the backyard cutting grass in another area, so she ran to get him. He was a doctor, a radiologist, but he put a tourniquet on my leg to stop the bleeding. He saved my life.”

Sprinkle endured 10 surgeries in the hospital to save his leg from a vicious infection. In the end, he said, he made peace with losing the limb.

“It was surgery after surgery and I was tired,” he said. “I was ready for something to happen. So, finally, they amputated my leg below the knee. My mom and my dad were extremely upset about it, but, for some reason, I’ve never had any sorrow – I’ve always been positive about the whole thing.”

Supported by friends and family, Sprinkle said losing part of his leg was a blessing in disguise. The indifferent student brought his grade point average up to 3.8 and got serious enough about school to start thinking about college. And the competitive athlete was determined to walk and, later, to run.

Sprinkle played football with classmates on the West Plaza and basketball nationally against other athletes with disabilities. His prowess on the court earned him an invitation to a national track and field competition, where he finished second in events he had never competed in before. That same year, he earned an invitation to compete in the inaugural Paralympics in Seoul, Korea.

Sprinkle said he continually broke the older model prosthetic legs while he trained and was afraid he would lose another in Seoul. He broke neither legs nor records in the Paralympic Games, but he did finish with some spectacular stories to tell, friends he will never forget, and a plan for the future.

In Korea, he met a prosthetist from Denver, Colorado, who inspired him to follow the same career path. So, back at PC, Sprinkle left his pre-engineering program and majored in business. After graduation, he went to Dallas, Tex., to earn his master’s degree in prosthetics and orthotics from the UT Southwestern Medical Center.

“I had a great time there,” Sprinkle said. “It just became my passion. So, I go from having a 1.6 GPA in high school to a 3.8 and then, in graduate school, a 3.9. I’m not bragging, I’m just saying if there’s a will, there’s a way. If you really want to do something, you’ll do it – whether it’s school, or walking without a leg, or running, or whatever. I wanted to learning everything I could about prosthetics and orthotics.”

Now, Sprinkle puts his knowledge of business and prosthetics as the owner of Sprinkle Prosthetics in Spartanburg, a small six-person operation where he works with a wide variety of patients who have lost limbs or need braces or orthotics to stay mobile. Much has changed in the materials and technology used in prosthetics since Sprinkle’s life changed in 1985.

But Sprinkle’s philosophy of helping others like him has not.

“Life goes by,” he said. “Enjoy it. Make a difference. Help people out – be there for them. Life is short.”