‘No more feeling sorry for me’: Amputee firefighter from Texas returns to hometown to tell his story

QUINCY — Gary Weiland never will forget the look on his kids’ faces.

The Quincy native, now living in Ponder, Texas, and working as a firefighter in nearby Denton, was in a hospital bed in November 2018 after surgeons amputated his left leg below the knee. Complications from knee surgery in 2016 restricted the blood flow to his foot and led to swelling in his knee, forcing the decision to change his life forever.

“I specifically remember my (four) kids looking at me like I’m the most pathetic thing they’ve ever seen in their life,” Weiland recalled. “Before this, I played sports with my kids and loved playing basketball. I’m only 5-foot-10, but I could dunk. I felt like I was Superman, and this was a big dose of kryptonite.

“I had all these thoughts and everything running through my mind. How am I going to support my family? How am I going to work? What am I going to do? And when my kids looked at me, I specifically remember I decided right then and there they would never look at me like that again. I made the decision that I was going to be the very first firefighting amputee in the world.”

Weiland, 42, needed 10 months and six days to return to his job as a firefighter. He since has become a member of the USA Sitting Volleyball High Performance Team and the USA ParaBeach Volleyball Team. He recently took part in an American Ninja Warrior competition that he believes NBC will air later this month.

Weiland was in Quincy at Lincoln-Douglas School Tuesday, speaking to students about his story. He also signed copies of his book, “Fischer’s Accident,” while at the school and later at a book signing at Codex Books, 3734 Broadway.

“I didn’t know how (becoming an amputee firefighter) was going to work. I just knew I was going to do everything I could to make that happen,” Weiland said. “Once I made that decision, my whole world changed. My mental state changed. There was no more feeling sorry for me. I’m gonna get after it and do what’s it going to take to get back to fighting fires.”

Weiland grew up in Quincy, graduating from Quincy High School in 1997. He attended John Wood Community College and Western Illinois University. He hoped to become a math teacher, but he started working for Wal-Mart as an assistant manager. 

A few years later, he took a similar job with Wal-Mart in Kansas City. A few years after that, Weiland took a co-manager position with Hobby Lobby, and two years later, he accepted a transfer to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

“I was 31 at the time. I felt like retail management was not what I was put on this planet to do,” Weiland said. 

He looked into joining the military or becoming a police officer, but he eventually quit his job and attended a fire academy and EMT school in Texas, eventually taking the job in Denton. 

Years of sports and being active with his family led to a partial knee replacement in 2016 and, two years later, amputation.

“Unfortunately, it was one of those rare complications you don’t ever think about,” Weiland said. “Doctors actually spent about 15 hours trying to restore the blood flow, and they could not do it. So I wake up without a leg. The worst day of my life.

“My body had to heal. My brain had to heal. As hard as this was physically, it was 10 times harder mentally. It’s quite a humbling experience to go from dunking a basketball to learning how to walk. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into it. Eventually I was back on the fire trucks full duty with no restrictions. I was pretty excited.”

Media in the Dallas-Fort Worth area learned of Weiland’s return, and as more people saw his story, Weiland started accepting public speaking engagements. When he talks to school-aged children, he says the most popular question asked is if he could show them his prosthetic leg. On days like Tuesday when he wore shorts so the kids can see his leg, children typically ask him how difficult it is to shower when he removes the prosthetic leg.

“I wanted to reach the masses,” he said. “That’s where I came up with the idea of a children’s book.”

“Fischer’s Accident” is about a firefighter who has his leg amputated, gets a prosthetic leg and learns how to walk, run and eventually fight fires.

“The purpose of this book is to take the shock factor away from kids,” Weiland said. “I read it to hundreds of kids, and every time, their jaw drops. Then when they’re out in public, and they see amputees at the grocery store or the ballgame, they can see them and say, ‘Oh, that person’s just like Fischer.’”

“The second part of this purpose is to show people that hey, life stinks sometimes, OK? You can’t always control that, but you can control how you respond to that. I fought through some pretty tough times, and if kids can relate that to a real person, then maybe they can relate whatever adversity they’re going through in their life and say, ‘OK, Fischer can do this. I can get through whatever adversity I’m going through.”

Weiland says the most troublesome part of being a firefighter is the physicality of it.

“We have to put our gear on, and it weighs 70 pounds or so,” he said. “Any time I’m climbing a ladder or I’m standing on a pitched roof, I have to change the way I do things. Before (the amputation), I didn’t think twice about grabbing my ladder, grabbing my hook and going in to fight fires. Now I have to think a little bit about my technique. I’ve had to adapt and change the way I do some of my activities.”

As Weiland became accustomed to his prosthetic leg, he investigated activities he could get involved in. He took part in a track and field event for amputees in Oklahoma called the Endeavor Games, where he learned about the USA Sitting Volleyball High Performance Team — a “minor league” team for people who could play on the USA Paralympic National Team.

“It is literally volleyball. It hurts, but it’s a lot of fun,” Weiland said. “I’m diving around and I’m just having fun. I like to win, and I like to compete. So this guy comes up to me and says, ‘What do you think about trying out for the USA Sitting Volleyball Team?’ I’m like, ‘What’s the USA Sitting Volleyball Team?”

He also started playing beach volleyball, which he says he likes more than the sitting team because “I’m able to get up and around.” He hopes to play for the United States in the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles.

Weiland has had his prosthetic leg for three years and continues to adapt to it.

“This isn’t something I’m over and done with,” he said. “This is going to take decades to get fully get used to. My brain still hasn’t fully accepted this, but I’ll get there. I’m working through it.”