Carson couple leaves today to help in Afghanistan

It had been 23 years since Dan Haney's first patient had walked.

Working out of a brick, bombed-out building, the Carson City man and his team propped up donated artificial legs and equipment against a blood-stained, bullet-riddled wall on their first day in Afghanistan.

Standing before Haney was a man who used to love to run through the countryside before a land mine, planted during conflict with the Soviet Union, destroyed his leg. It was amputated.

Now, among the rubble of a once-vibrant village, Haney worked for hours to fit the amputee with a prosthetic leg, two new black leather shoes and a walker.

The crowd cheered and howled as the man paused at a gate as he was leaving, threw the walker over his shoulder, and sprinted across an open field.

In a country where millions of land mines, each the size of a computer mouse, have disabled 17 percent of the population, the American team wasn't able to help everyone who showed up that week. In all, 65 people were fitted with donated limbs and 200 received wheelchairs, walkers and crutches.

One 10-year-old boy carried his sister for almost two hours to get help. Others were brought by wheelbarrow, and some crawled.

"I'm a former Marine so I've seen a few things that were messed up, but nothing like this," Haney said about the few days he spent in the country last year.

Haney returns today to Kabul with his girlfriend Toni Leffler, 51, who works at the Carson Water Subconservancy District in Carson. The two are paying $2,500 in airfare and boarding costs to volunteer with Morningstar Development, a charitable organization based in Colorado Springs, Colo., that has helped in Afghanistan since 1997.

Morningstar president Daniel Batchelder said, "We're just really trying to help people get back on their feet and put the pieces back together."

He said about 30 teams of six to eight volunteers stay at a company house in Kabul during the year. Morningstar runs programs in health care, education, small business development and agriculture.

Haney, 64, president of Ultra Prosthetics and Orthotics in Carson, has worked in the prosthetics and orthotics field for 40 years. He has traveled to fit patients and is experienced in making equipment on site.

Haney wrote to President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks asking him to help in any way. He heard back from the State Department, but couldn't find anyone who was actively helping the victims.

Then he got a call from his father's minister in Missouri about a donation of prosthetics in Colorado and was connected to the Morningstar program.

This week, Haney plans to find a location near Kabul to start a college to teach Afghans how to make and fit prosthetics. The eagerness of the people he met has encouraged him to find a way to teach them to help themselves.

"I came back with the feeling that they were very, very strong people and had tremendous resolve to get out of the mess they were in," Haney said.

In a country where women can't be treated by male doctors, Leffler may be able to aid women who might feel more comfortable with her.

"It's compelling," she said. "I want to help meet the need."

Haney's experience with Afghan people has shown him that they want to rebuild their cities and are eager for U.S. help.

"Yes, 3,000 people were killed at the World Trade Center, but we've liberated 30 million people in the Middle East, in an area where we never thought we'd be," Haney said. "Sure, there's some who don't like it, but they are getting smaller in number."

The woman managing Haney's trip last year was approached by a group of government officials in the small village of Istalif. Fearing the worst in a country where men don't often speak to women, the group was heartened by what the mayor of the village said, according to team member Louise Hassinger.

"You have helped my people," he told her. "You are welcome anytime."