Flathead is home to innovators
A badly injured man can walk again and football players are better able to protect their heads, thanks to the efforts of some Kalispell creative thinkers.
One of them, Kalispell prosthetist and orthotist Doug Jack, helped craft a high-tech leg brace that brought pain relief and freedom to a long-suffering vehicle accident victim.
The other innovator, nurse Jim Wegener, is observing as his invention of a solid helmet clasp is being tested by a host of college football programs, as well as some local high schools.
Both of these are examples of people seeing a need and meeting it in creative fashion.
Jack fitted Jonathan McCubbins of Noxon with a custom carbon-fiber brace that alleviates pressure on McCubbins’ pain-ridden ankle that was shattered in an accident three years ago.
Even after more than a million dollars’ worth of treatment, McCubbins still was unable to walk without agony and was even considering amputation until the new brace allowed him to take his first painless steps.
Wegener, on the other hand, came up with a safety latch for football helmets that prevents them from popping off during play.
The Wegener Latch, for which he has a patent pending, could go a long way in addressing the serious problem of concussions and brain injuries among football players.
His latch works by sliding a button into a large opening, then down along a narrower trench where it can’t be yanked out like the button snaps on football helmets used today.
College teams across the country, as well as Glacier and Flathead high schools, are field-testing the new latches.
If they succeed as Wegener hopes they will, he has a huge market waiting: more than a million helmets at the college and high school levels across the country.
Wegener and Jack are local examples of the difference innovative thinking can make in people’s lives.
And they bear testament to the fact that those kinds of innovations aren’t just the province of high-faluting research centers at big universities or corporations: Innovation can begin at home.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.