A Segway to Medford vet’s recovery

Kevin Krogh, of Medford, is used to drawing attention just about everywhere he goes.

Like the Steele County Free Fair last week, for example.

“I’m sure there’s about a thousand pictures of me out here,” he said. “Just … everybody.”

If you were at the fair, you probably saw him: Dark hair, dark eyes, big smile, well over 6-feet tall – and riding a Segway.

Something else you may have noticed: Krogh has two prosthetic legs. That’s the reason for the Segway.

Though Krogh can walk with his prostheses, doing so in a jostling crowd with uneven walking surfaces is a challenge.

And unlike using a wheelchair – which he does at home, in the evening, after he’s removed his legs – his Segway X2 has thick, ATV-style tires, and gives him the line-of-sight he had before March 23, 2007.

The injury

Krogh, the son of Sonya Krogh, of Medford, and the late Kevin Krogh, joined the Air Force in March 2006. He completed basic training and school in Texas, “and I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to go to Japan, go to Germany, go to Korea; and nope. ‘Kevin, you’re going to Virginia.’”

A weapons loader for the F-22 Raptor aircraft, Krogh was assigned to the 1^st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Langley AFB in Hampton, Va.

He has no memory of the crash.

“I don’t remember anything about it,” he said, “but I was told a friend and I were going to a movie. He lost control of the car, went through the median of the freeway, and hit a pickup head-on.”

His friend was killed in the crash; Krogh’s list of injuries included two broken femurs; a shattered left wrist and a broken right arm. His jaw was broken in two places; his nose and a cheekbone were also broken.

His parents flew to Portsmouth Naval Hospital to be with their only son, the second-oldest of their five children.

His sister, Krista Krogh, was a seventh-grader at the time. She remembers her parents “calling to prepare us to fly there for his funeral.”

Doctors saved her brother’s life, but they couldn’t save his legs. Krogh’s left leg was amputated April 4, 2007; he awoke from a coma four days later – Easter Sunday. It had been 16 days since the crash.

His right leg was removed April 23; he was brought to Minnesota May 7 to begin his rehabilitation.

Despite no longer being in a coma, a traumatic brain injury left Krogh with absolutely zero recall of any of those events.

“I just remember waking up at the (Veterans Administration) Hospital here in Minnesota,” he said. “I just couldn’t believe it; I had cast on this arm … a trach tube, a feeding tube, air, tubes all over me.”

The recovery

He received his first prosthetic legs on July 17, about four months after the crash, and immediately took some steps with them.

In November of that year, he returned to Texas for further rehab at what was then Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. It’s the Department of Defense’s largest facility, and only Level 1 Trauma Center.

“At night, I’d go to bed, cover my legs, and think they’d be back tomorrow,” Krogh said. To this day, “they tingle all day, every day.”

One of the therapists there, though, had a friend at Segs4Vets, a company in St. Louis, Mo.

“I heard about it in therapy,” Krogh said. “I was watching other veterans, because I was still in a wheelchair, still not that mobile, so I was watching these guys just go around and go around; everybody there was missing a leg or an arm, and using Segways.”

Soon enough, he had his own, something he calls “unbelievable. I fell in love with it right away, just the ease of using it.”

Less than a year after the crash, Krogh was participating in adaptive sports.

“I’ve been more active since my injury,” he said, ticking off the things he’s done: wheelchair softball, wheelchair soccer, wheelchair football, wheelchair pickleball, sit-skiing in both snow and water, and sit-volleyball with a Paralympics gold-medalist.

Krogh is also a certified SCUBA diver, making dives in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Florida and Hawaii.

He remained in the Air Force for just over three years before he was medically discharged.

“They knew right away, and told me ‘you’re probably going to get kicked out, as soon as you get healthy,’” Krogh said.

Still, the VA covers the cost of his prosthetic limbs, which are about $75,000 each for his “tall legs.” He uses his “short legs,” which are just the socket and no height, to swim, SCUBA and limited walking in the winter.

The future

In the 15 years since he was injured, Krogh has had four Segways, which cost about $5,000 each. Segs4Vets covers the cost.

He used to be a little harder on them, he admitted, but at 36, is slowing down just a bit.

Still, he’d like to continue with sports – playing with as many Paralympians as he can in as many sports as he can. He moved back to Minnesota last November, and finds most of his athletic opportunities in the Twin Cities area.

“I try to be,” Krogh said, when asked if he thought he was a motivator for others who may have limited mobility.

“One of my best friends in Texas was a teacher, anatomy and physiology,” he said. “I came in and talked about my injury and stuff. I did it once, but haven’t done it too much.”

There’s a reason, it seems.

“I feel bad, because I was in the military, but everybody thinks I went overseas and served, got a Purple Heart,” Krogh said. “And I’m like, ahh, no. They shake my hand, but was I really in the military? I just feel bad.”

Of course, the military doesn’t see it that way: Krogh was injured while on active duty – critically injured.

People do ask what happened, he said, “mostly little kids; they think the Segway’s cool. I usually tell little kids, ‘shark attack, shark attack; three tigers and a shark in the ocean,’ or ‘I didn’t eat my vegetables, and now look.’”

Krogh’s goal and advice now is to “live life to your fullest, every day.”

And if he’d never been injured?

“I’d probably still be in the military,” he said. “Traveling.”