With help and a message, girl stands tall again

Myleanna Siedlecky, 9, cartwheeled across the floor of a Hicksville facility, raced her mom through the building’s main room, and practiced hopping in place as she tested the blade that's replacing what had been her lower left leg.

She will be taking the prosthetic back to her Windsor, New York, home, where she said she looks forward to playing basketball, practicing with her soccer ball, and returning to camp.

“It’s four hours one way, but it is beyond worth it,” the girl's mother, Jessica Bixby, said of her second trip from upstate to Long Island for her daughter’s fitting at A Step Ahead Prosthetics in Hicksville.

Myleanna was 7 when her left leg was amputated from the knee down after a riding lawn-mower accident on April 24, 2017. On Friday, she received the final fitting for her blade at the Hicksville facility.

They had tried a prosthetist closer to home, Myleanna’s grandmother, Lori Siedlecky, said, but she described the initial prosthetic as ill-fitting and troublesome.

Bixby said she had been looking for a place that focused more intensely on pediatrics and knew of A Step Ahead Prosthetics providing American Girl dolls with prosthetic limbs, which is how she landed at the Hicksville facility.

Myleanna’s lighter blade was not covered by insurance, but rather by a donor through the one2one USA Foundation — a direct charitable foundation that allows people to donate to causes that resonate with them.

“The causes are really originated by our donors,” said executive director Gardenia Cucci, explaining the program for youth in need of prosthetics that helped Myleanna. “We also have programs for those interested in supporting children to attend vocational school. The causes very much vary.”

It took about five weeks to complete Myleanna’s donation process through the one2one USA Foundation, which partnered with A Step Ahead Prosthetics to make it possible.

After the foundation approached A Step Ahead and received a bank of various children in need of prosthetics, Myleanna was personally selected by her donor, with whom her story deeply resonated, said A Step Ahead's founder, CEO and certified prosthetist, Erik Schaffer. 

“She wanted to take herself to the next level, either through gymnastics, running, sports — and designing that prosthesis was nothing more than super-exciting for us,” Schaffer said.

The one2one USA Foundation has partnered with A Step Ahead several times in the past. A specialized sport prosthesis like Myleanna’s normally costs between $21,000 to $30,000, depending on differences in design and adaptability, Shaffer said.

People sent in letters of recommendation to the foundation about Myleanna's spirit, activeness and inspiration before she was chosen by her donor, Bixby said. Many have learned about her story through a Facebook page, “Getting Myleanna On Her Feet Again,” created by her grandmother. The page currently is “liked” by 1,175 people, and photos and updates are shared on a weekly basis. 

“I hope she can just play and be one of the kids out there on the soccer field,” Lori Siedlecky said of her granddaughter.

Bixby encourages Myleanna to tell people what happened to raise awareness about lawn mower safety. They have done a few presentations on the topic since the accident.

Roughly 9,500 children in the United States are injured through lawn mower-related accidents each year, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Children should not be on lawn mowers,” Siedlecky said, recounting her granddaughter’s accident. “People need to be vigilant. They’re not toys, they’re not four-wheelers — they’re machines that can really hurt somebody.”