(It doesn’t start until 30 seconds in)

Coming across this beautiful video, your correspondent was reminded of Jitu, whose story is here at Left for dead, Jitu finds his feet again — except that that was written before another piece of bad news hit.

Early November 2011, almost exactly a year after the accident that crushed his left leg, the implanted metal plate inside his leg was found to have broken. Moreover, the tibia (the main bone in the lower leg) had not joined sufficiently. The choice was to open up the leg again and repeat the bone graft, or to amputate. A few days later, after consulting his colleagues, the doctor told him that the best course of action was the latter.

Whichever way it would be, TWC2 got ready to launch a drive to raise funds for the operation.

In the end, however, Jitu decided against any more operations, not even an amputation. He could not bear the thought of losing the leg, however useless it might be. The finality of amputation might have been too much to bear, representating as it would, the abandonment of hope. It was a Rubicon he could not cross.

This, despite the fact that a prosthesis would have been fitted for him.

TWC2 executive committee member Debbie Fordyce tried her best to get him to think rationally through the issue. She surfed the ‘net to find examples of amputees who had run races, swum seas and climbed mountains. And, as the video showed, it needn’t even stop anyone from dancing to acclaim.

Indeed, an artificial leg would have been a whole lot more useful to Jitu, allowing him greater mobility, than the dead weight of useless flesh and broken bone, plus always having to rely on a crutch. An artificial leg frees up both arms; a crutch makes continuing demands on one. How would he be economically productive the way he was? How was he going to feed his family?

But Jitu was certain in his decision, and of course his choice had to be respected. He went back to his wife and family in Bangladesh end November, distressed.

“Not as distressed as I was,” said Debbie. “I tried, I really tried to change his mind.”