Technology serving new war amputees (photo)

Technology serving new war amputees
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | January 7, 2005

TYNGSBOROUGH -- Sometimes while lounging on his couch, 21-year-old Matthew Boisvert feels a sharp pain in his right foot, as if "someone is driving a stake through it," he said.

He laughed at the absurdity of it, saying, "I have no right foot!"

Boisvert's right leg was amputated at the knee in August, days after the young Marine barreled his Humvee into a booby-trap in Fallujah. By late December, 199 members of the US military fighting in Iraq had lost limbs, and the percentage of wounded troops requiring amputations is double the rate during US wars in the last century.

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