There was a day, back in late September, when Luther Reynolds felt normal.

Reynolds, the city of Charleston’s police chief, went to the gym, worked a long day, then grabbed a beer with friends. He stood inside a waterfront restaurant on Daniel Island chatting, as he liked to do.

Yet his lower back throbbed. He shifted feet, stretched.

Part of being active, he thought.

At 55, Reynolds carried the muscular frame of a younger man. He had run marathons, played rugby and football, and liked to push himself hard at his gym, Iron Tribe Fitness. Back pain came with an active lifestyle so ingrained that Reynolds liked to think of life in sports metaphors.

A friend noticed his discomfort. She suggested he go to the Southeastern Spine Institute in Mount Pleasant. Reynolds’ wife concurred.

Two days later, on Oct. 1, he arrived for an appointment.

An X-ray showed some basic disc degeneration in his back. Nothing serious. The doctor suggested an MRI, just to be sure. This time, the radiologist saw something he didn’t like and ordered an enhanced MRI of Reynolds’ pelvis.

The office had one opening in an hour. Or another in three weeks.

The chief looked at his watch. It was a Friday. He had a lunch meeting soon. Then again, one of the men was running late anyway. Why not just get the MRI over with?

After it was over, the doctor returned.

Overwhelmed, Reynolds managed to register just a few words, like “a mass” and “a tumor” and “very serious.”

***

The MRI had revealed a large mass in his pelvis, but it wasn’t clear what it was. Reynolds needed to see a specialist, quickly.

The weekend passed in slow motion.

On Monday, he drove to the Medical University of South Carolina where he met Dr. Lee Rodney Leddy, chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics and Physical Medicine. Leddy, an expert in bone and soft tissue tumors, launched a series of bloodwork and biopsies, gathering evidence like a medical detective.

Yes, Reynolds had cancer. But what kind?

It became clear that it was a kind of sarcoma, an uncommon group of cancers that arise from connective tissues such as muscle, bone, nerves and fat. He would need major surgery to remove the mass. Time was critical.

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Luther Reynolds' daughter Grace gives him a hug inside their home. Family and faith strengthened Reynolds as he faced a cancer diagnosis and extensive surgery. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

By the time Reynolds began chemotherapy, he was in acute pain. He received his first treatment, waited three weeks, then received his second and waited three more weeks. Leddy hoped to shrink the tumor and make surgery less extensive.

But sarcomas include dozens of subtypes, some downright rare. Data to form treatment guidelines for those was scarce.

Reynolds spent Thanksgiving in the hospital getting chemo, trying to eat some of the full turkey dinner his grown children brought to his room. Yet he felt hopeful. The pain was subsiding. He could walk up and down stairs again. 

So when he returned for another scan, the news shocked him.

The tumor had grown.

***

Reynolds stood at the pinnacle of a 30-year career, chief of the state's largest municipal police force. More than 400 employees depended on his leadership.

So did the city's 150,000 residents, not to mention the millions of visitors each year who flocked to the coastal enclave, once a key slave port, now an international tourism mecca. 

Yet given the tumor's growth, Reynolds now faced a far more extensive surgery while juggling those duties, on top of the realities of cancer. His odds of survival hinged on removing all of the tumor, along with a cancer-free margin around it.

One key challenge: The tumor now affected his sacrum, the large triangular bone at the base of the spine where the pelvis’ two wings attach. It provides critical support for the hips and houses nerves to the bladder and bowel.

Before the tumor's growth, Leddy had leaned toward performing what is called an internal hemipelvectomy. The surgery involves removing bone, including sections of the pelvic girdle, but preserves the legs.

Now, he leaned toward an external one, a very rare and extensive surgery that involves amputating a large part of the pelvis — and the leg that attaches to it. Reynolds also likely needed about half of his sacrum removed.

Until then, Leddy had felt the need to send only a few of his patients to other medical centers for surgery. But nationwide, doctors were moving toward concentrating sacral tumor treatments at a few medical centers to improve outcomes through more specialization.

He called a doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Dr. Peter Rose, an orthopedic surgeon, was known for removing sarcomas, including through this kind of surgery of the sacrum. He also was a friend.

Rose agreed. Reynolds needed the more extensive surgery to save his life. And it was imperative, due to the tumor’s growth, that he do so quickly.

As Reynolds and his wife, Caroline, absorbed this news, they quickly agreed. They trusted the two surgeons. They trusted that God was taking them to this place so far from home. And they wanted the cancer gone.

On a Friday, Reynolds got a call from Mayo. Rose could see him on Monday. Caroline booked flights leaving at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday.

They arrived in Minnesota in mid-December. With Christmas approaching, Rose scheduled the surgery for early January.

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Caroline Reynolds gets directions to a rental car at Reagan National Airport after arriving with husband Luther Reynolds on Monday, April 25, 2022, in Arlington, Va. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

***

Reynolds is the baby of three brothers and often jokes that he’s grateful he turned out on the right side of the law. His mother died of cancer when they were all boys, and his father had died since, as well.

Over Christmas, Reynolds’ brothers and other family descended on the couple’s home to offer love and support. Ten guests hunkered down, rarely leaving due to COVID’s omicron wave.

Although Reynolds’ cancer and upcoming surgery sat on everyone’s thoughts, they tried to keep it as normal as possible. Caroline cooked the shrimp and crab casserole she made every year, along with her whiskey sours, even though she doesn’t drink anymore. They played cornhole, as usual.

New Year’s passed. On Jan. 2, Reynolds and his wife boarded another plane to Minnesota.

***

The Mayo Clinic is about 1,200 miles north of Charleston. In January, the average low temperature at its sprawling campus in Rochester is 5 degrees. The Reynolds, a very social couple, knew nobody there.

As the surgeons prepared, a pathology team pinpointed the precise type of sarcoma Reynolds had. It was a triton tumor.

These soft-tissue sarcomas form in the nerve sheath, the protective covering around peripheral nerves, which reach out into the body, including hips and legs. Only about 100 triton tumors have been reported in scientific literature.

They aren’t only extremely rare, they are particularly lethal.

The discovery didn’t change Reynolds’ treatment. But it did make it more critical. He faced two days of surgery that would stretch over a combined 20-plus hours.

It would begin the following day.

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Luther Reynolds settles into his room in the Medical University of South Carolina’s Ashley River Tower before starting an inpatient chemotherapy treatment on March 25, 2022. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

***

For Caroline, the long hours passed in surreal steps. She sat in a hospital room, then a waiting room, then a more private room. She prayed. She chatted with nurses and other patients’ families. She called people back home.

After the second surgery, on Jan. 4, Rose hugged her and cried with her. The surgery, he said, went very well.

The medical team wheeled Reynolds to an intensive care room. When he returned to consciousness, he glanced down at the flat, white sheet where his right leg no longer was. Strangely, he didn’t feel that sad.

He mostly felt happy the cancer was removed. And that he was alive.

He also figured many people would have regrets at this moment, perhaps wishing they had run a marathon or traveled more while they had both legs.

But he had completed a 50-mile ultramarathon. He'd run the New York City Marathon, one of 10 he had completed by age 50. He had traveled to Russia, where he and Caroline adopted both of their children. He’d visited Argentina, Romania and Israel.

His next thought was: Now, I must learn to live with one leg.

He stayed in the hospital for 40 days. A spinal fluid leak sent him back to surgery. Blood pooling on a nerve left him in agony for 13 hours before another surgery to drain it.

Through it all, he came to love his nurses. And deeply appreciate Caroline. Given the pandemic, he could have just one visitor, and that was her. She left his side only to go to her hotel room, walking back and forth in the frigid weather, which she detests.

On Feb. 2, his medical team announced he could go home in a week. He broke down then. He was scared. And in pain. He had to learn to shower, to walk, to somehow live this new life.

***

Back home, news of his surgery seeped out into a community that knew him well. Reynolds, chief since 2018, was comfortable being out front in a city where police and Black residents shared some tough history. He had spent much of his tenure in Charleston grappling with issues stemming from it.

A racial bias audit in 2019 found disparities in traffic stops and use of force, among other areas. Then, in 2020, after a rally to protest the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, some people turned violent. They ransacked businesses along King Street as workers cowered in fear, desperately calling for police.

Reynolds faced stiff criticism.

But his genial, earnest manner struck many as genuine. He often spoke about harsh police actions of yesterday and the need for reforms. He also praised his troops.

Now, people were hearing about this public figure’s very personal challenge.

SWAT team members shaved their heads in shows of solidarity. Friends set up a GoFundMe. Well-wishers wrote letters and emails.

On Feb. 4, Reynolds sent a memo to City Council announcing his leg amputation to the world: “All of your prayers have sustained me through this most difficult period and I am forever grateful. I give praise to God for curing me of the cancer and I am excited to continue to serve as your Chief of Police.”

Mayor John Tecklenburg backed him, calling him “one of the finest men I’ve ever had the honor to know.”

Five days later, Reynolds and Caroline prepared to fly home. She couldn’t get back soon enough.

Yet he dreaded the trip. They would have to drive an hour to the airport, board a long flight to Atlanta, switch airplanes, fly home, then drive home. When he sat for long periods, the pain grew intense.

Instead, a former police officer who was a pilot arranged a private flight home from a closer airport. Some of Reynold’s command staff met them in Charleston and drove them home. He talked shop with them, something so wonderfully, soothingly normal.

He and Caroline arrived at their house adorned with banners, sidewalks covered in chalk messages of love. Their home soon filled with meals. Physical therapists came to work with him. Friends walked with him around the neighborhood so he could practice on crutches.

As he healed, Caroline went everywhere with him. She became his main driver, given he no longer could drive himself. She loved him dearly, prayed desperately for his life and recovery.

But these two very independent people were not so independent anymore.

***

A few weeks after returning home, Reynolds donned a dark-blue suit coat, red tie and gray slacks. The right pant leg was hemmed up just above the knee.

He wanted his troops — indeed, the entire city — to see he was alive and fully reengaged in his role.

Caroline drove him to police headquarters.

When he walked in on crutches, people in the hallway cheered. It was the first time most had seen him without a leg. He met their bright looks of hope, of happiness, and tried to project them back.

His office, with a large wooden desk, was a monument to physicality. Framed medals from the JFK 50-mile ultramarathon he ran and photographs of him at finish lines hung on every wall and filled the top of a credenza.

Yet when he sat at his desk, he shifted and squirmed. He couldn’t get comfortable. Soon, he was in pain.

Caroline drove him home.

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Charleston city police Sgt. Shane Garrison greets Chief Luther Reynolds at the department's headquarters on Friday, April 29, 2022. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

***

The couple began looking into getting his car retrofitted so he could drive with one leg. But it was not so simple. He had to go through a whole driving training program. And the first open appointment was a month away.

When he finally began the class in late March, his stride with crutches had grown confident. Caroline dropped him at the front doors to Roper Hospital, then left to park.

Sarah Bagley, an occupational therapist, soon led them to a room with metal desks and linoleum floors. She asked when he last drove. Reynolds figured in early January, right before his surgery.

“He’s been trying though,” Caroline offered.

He did not deny this.

Bagley tested his strength (“nice and strong!”) and then his coordination, vision, cognition — all perfectly fine.

Two hours later, it was time to drive.

When they reached the hospital’s front door, a red compact car from a driving school waited. The instructor hopped out.

“I know why you have gray hair,” Caroline said to him.

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Charleston Police Chief Luther Reynolds starts his first driving lesson with instructor Mark Hennessy from aLord Ashley Driving School on March 24, 2022. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

The instructor drove Reynolds through steady rain to a James Island neighborhood with quiet residential roads largely absent of small children and other hazards. They switched seats.

Using hand controls, Reynolds eased the little red car down a long street. Through drizzle, he drove slowly.

But he was driving.

Soon, the car cruised the speed limit past lawns sprouting green, pink azalea blooms and a sprinkler spitting in the rain, just like normal spring in normal Charleston in normal life.

***

The next day, the last Friday in March, Reynolds entered a dimly lit elevator at MUSC with his brother to begin the seven-floor ascent. It was time for Reynolds to receive his first dose of a new chemotherapy regimen. He dreaded it.

He would undergo the therapy every three weeks, each time staying in the hospital for three days.

When the elevator door opened, bright light flooded their eyes. Before them, a window overlooked the skyline of Charleston, defined by church steeples. And all around, a visual baptism of water. Reynolds peered at the spot at the peninsula’s tip where the Ashley River meets the Cooper.

Then, he turned to walk on his crutches toward the rooms where some of the sickest people in the city fight for life. His brother Dave wielded an overnight suitcase and an extra bag as they headed toward a room.

Once inside, Dave dropped the bags. He hugged his little brother, tears in his eyes.

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Luther Reynolds, with his brother Dave Reynolds (left), stops to take in the view from the Medical University of South Carolina’s Ashley River Tower as he arrives for an in-patient chemotherapy treatment on March 25, 2022, in Charleston. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

***

As the days passed, Reynolds went into the office, jumped on Zoom and took seemingly endless phone calls. He spoke to 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson and State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel, who offered prayers from him and his family.

Reynolds struggled to explain just how much gestures like that meant to him.

On Monday nights, he hosts a men’s group from Seacoast Church, where he worships. When they arrived at his home one evening, he was wiping away tears. He had just been reading a letter from a guy he used to work with.

“Luther, it seems like only yesterday,” the note began. The man reminisced about how he and Reynolds had attended a fundraiser together right after that trip to the spine institute.

“We had a great time of course, but everything changed that weekend for you,” the man wrote. He called Reynolds a great friend, mentor and leader. 

“You always get it done,” he added. “I hope you know your impact is far, wide and deep.”

For Reynolds, few words meant more.

Not that all days were good. Chemo left him exhausted, sometimes with vertigo. He loved physical therapy, but one day, he could barely make it.

He and Caroline didn’t know what his future would hold. This cancer is so rare that people weren’t making predictions. So they worked hard to adjust and settle into their new normal.

During his last driving lesson, Reynolds cruised toward Interstate 526 and merged into traffic thick with wind and trucks. He felt very comfortable. He and his instructor decided that, although most people prefer hand controls, he felt natural driving with the pedals on the left side. And he liked having his hands free.

They ordered retrofitting for his work and personal cars, but those would take several weeks.

In the meantime, he and Caroline packed again. The next day, they would fly to Washington, D.C., to meet with a prosthetic leg maker.

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Luther Reynolds, a devoted Christian, joins his Seacoast Church men's Bible study group in prayer during a Monday, May 2, 2002, gathering in Charleston. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

***

Crossing the Potomac River from the nation’s capital into Maryland, they arrived at the yellow strip mall-style offices of Medical Center Orthotics and Prosthetics. It was a remarkable coincidence — a God thing, they said — that one of the nation’s premier makers of prosthetic legs operated here.

The couple had spent most of their lives in Montgomery County. They met here, raised their children here. He spent 30 years policing the area, climbing the ranks to assistant police chief before moving to Charleston in 2018 to become the city's top cop.

But Reynolds chose this center because its staff had extensive experience creating prosthetics for people who had undergone surgeries like his. For 17 years, the company also had an exclusive contract with the Walter Reed Army Medical Center to build lower extremity prosthetics for the nation’s wounded warriors.

The couple soon sat down with co-founder Mike Corcoran. A towering Irishman, he had worked with thousands of amputees over 31 years. He also understood the drive of athletes to walk, run, swing and paddle again. In the 1990s, Corcoran competed as a slalom canoeist in two summer Olympics.

“If you want to be active, I can help you,” he said.

Caroline left crying with hope.

They returned a month later, after Reynolds got his stitches out. Corcoran and his team created a cast for a contraption that would anchor a prosthetic leg. He also sent Reynolds home with a clear, hard mold of it. Caroline called it “the bucket.”

It strapped around his waist and re-created the support of a hip and pelvis. Corcoran’s team would use the same mold to create the upper part of Reynolds’ prosthetic.

It was a godsend. With it, Reynolds could sit longer without pain.

But it was not a leg.

***

In late April, Reynolds spent the weekend at Harvard University meeting with police chiefs from around the country, then boarded a red-eye flight to Washington, D.C., on Monday morning.

After landing, they drove to the center.

Caroline hopped out. “Alright, let’s do it!”

When Corcoran emerged asking for the chief’s right tennis shoe, Caroline handed over a one bright-blue Brooks with a neon green swoosh.

“I’m so excited about this, I’m going to cry,” she said.

They headed into a nearby physical therapy-style room with hard eggshell floors and two long bars to grasp with each hand while one learns to walk. Tall mirrors stared back, uncompromising judges on either end.

Corcoran soon returned carrying Reynolds’ new high-tech leg in one hand, the bright blue tennis shoe attached to its foot.

Caroline grinned. “I’m in love with it already.”

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Luther Reynolds' new high-tech prosthetic leg awaits his first moments walking with it at Medical Center Orthotics & Prosthetics in Silver Spring, Md., on Monday, April 25, 2022. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

Reynolds didn’t smile. With the crutches, he headed to the bars, gaze firm, every synapse focused on a singular task: He would walk with this leg. As quickly as possible.

Ditching his crutches, he stood in a seafoam green Huk fishing shirt and black compression shorts, gaze fixed on the mirror ahead. Grasping both bars, he began a dozen rapid-fire dips, as if firing up his body's strength.

Corcoran walked over, slipped what looked like a black version of the bucket around Reynolds’ waist and tightened two straps around him. The device, which Corcoran called a “sitting socket,” encased Reynold’s mid-section. The hard mold was lined with soft material to hug and fill in the shape of Reynold’s remaining pelvis and provide a base for him to sit on. His new leg was attached to it.

Corcoran kneeled in front of Reynolds. Grasping the titanium limb, with its microprocessor-controlled power knee, he peered at his cellphone. Through an app, he could tweak the knee’s kick and give. The knee also would monitor and adjust as Reynolds took steps to improve its reflection of his normal gait.

Reynold's new hydraulic hip joint was the most advanced type out there. His new foot was made of titanium and carbon fiber. The entire prosthetic pushed $200,000.

“This might be a little short, might be a little long ... ” Corcoran said, adjusting the length of this rod and that, spinning a wrench device, like tinkering with an erector set. He pulled the leg off, tweaked it, reattached it.

Reynolds watched in the mirror. The man staring back had two legs.

“It’s amazing,” Caroline said from a chair behind him. “Not even five months since he has been out of the hospital after surgery.”

Reynolds glanced down at his feet. At his bright blue tennis shoes.

Both of them.

For a moment, Corcoran stopped tinkering and peered at the spot where the leg attached to the sitting socket. He rested back on his knees.

“I want that leg to be further out,” he said.

The prosthetic needed to simulate Reynold’s normal hip alignment so that when he walked, the gait kept everything else aligned. This was critical. If Reynolds learned faulty fundamentals, he could have trouble with the leg — and the rest of his body — over the long haul.

Corcoran nudged the prosthetic leg out a few inches. More screwing, more adjusting.

Then he exhaled audibly. With both elbows on the bars, he studied the 6-inch metal plate where the leg attached to the sitting socket.

“I’d say we are 90 percent there,” he said.

But he wanted to send the leg back to the shop, detach the plate and rotate it out and down a smidge. That meant re-foaming where it attached and laminating over it again.

In other words, Reynolds would have to wait another day.

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Luther Reynolds' prosthetic leg stands ready for last-minute adjustments at Medical Center Orthotics & Prosthetics in Silver Spring, Md., on Monday, April 25, 2022. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

***

At their hotel, Caroline fell into a deep sleep. The chief dozed, too.

When they awakened and prepared to meet friends for dinner, he slipped back into work mode, returning emails, stuffing his AirPods in for a 45-minute conversation with the city’s Human Resources Department.

The past two years had challenged him, and his approach to policing. They had challenged every police chief across America.

In particular, he had taken heat for not using more force to quell the 2020 riot. But he was adamant that his department would not police like it had in the past. Too often, officers stormed communities, especially Black ones, into submission.

He also strongly disagreed with the "cops are bad” narrative.

As Caroline tried to pull him out the door to meet their friends, he wondered: Maybe he could use this cancer ordeal to inspire people, to demonstrate their mutual humanity, to help the community come together more to heal.

***

When they returned to the prosthetic center the next morning, a uniformed Montgomery County police officer waited to greet Reynolds.

In 2007, Jonathan Pruziner was an Army specialist operating in Baghdad when an explosive device blew off his lower leg. He was 20 years old. He met Corcoran at Walter Reed.

This morning, he showed up to support Reynolds, who had hired him — a beat cop with a prosthetic leg — not long before leaving for Charleston.

When Reynolds spotted him, his eyes brightened. “Man, it’s great seeing you! It is life-changing talking to people who have been through it.”

He explained that he had struggled to sleep overnight with the worst phantom pains yet shooting down the leg he no longer had.

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Montgomery County police officer Jon Pruziner keeps his eye on his former assistant police chief, Luther Reynolds. Pruziner, who wears a prosthetic leg, showed up to offer support when Reynolds received his. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

Pruziner nodded. He used to “punch the hell” out of his surviving leg when that happened to remind his brain that the one limb was still there.

“Maybe my body was angry because I got a new leg,” Reynolds mused as they joined Corcoran in the room with the bars.

Corcoran strapped the sitting socket onto Reynolds again, tightening it, the leg reaching the ground.

“I remember the first steps I took. It’s going to be cool!” Pruziner said, sitting against a wall to watch. 

Perched on a small rolling stool in front of Reynolds, Corcoran reached out to shift Reynolds’ weight slightly to the right, over his new leg.

“You’re standing a little cattywampus.”

Then, he rolled backward, away.

Reynolds bounced lightly, feeling the leg beneath him.

Hopping up, Corcoran demonstrated how Reynolds should take a step with his left leg, then pop his hips forward to thrust the new leg forward, too.

“The knee will do its thing, and the hip will do its thing. We use the bar just for guidance. Pop. Pop. Like that. Using the bar just for guidance. So give it a whirl. The first steps are horrible, but don’t worry.”

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Caroline Reynolds watches as her husband Luther Reynolds takes his first steps with his new prosthetic leg on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at Medical Center Orthotics & Prosthetics in Silver Spring, Md. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

Gripping the bars, Reynolds stepped with his left leg, thrust his hip forward. With a gentle whooshing sound, the new leg followed, bending at the hip and knee to take a step. Reynolds looked up from his blue tennis shoes to watch himself in the mirror, his face a knot of concentration.

He took three more steps down the bars.

Corcoran smiled like a dad who just saw his kid ride a bike.

“Beautiful.”

He patted Reynolds on the arm. “You see what the knee is doing? It’s taking the step, right? But you’re the pilot. You’re in control.”

After a couple more laps back and forth, Corcoran asked how it all felt.

“Good,” Reynolds said. “But I don’t feel that accomplished yet.” Because what he really wanted was to walk, to run, to jump like he could before.

“Oh, you will.”

Reynolds nodded. He wanted to appreciate this now. But he mostly wanted to reach tomorrow.

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Adventist HealthCare Physical Therapist Farhad Ostovari works with Luther Reynolds as he learns to walk with his prosthetic leg Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at Medical Center Orthotics & Prosthetics in Silver Spring, Md. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

Corcoran cheered him on. He also applauded the high-tech limb. Nobody got this level of movement so soon with Reynold’s degree of amputation. People could struggle for weeks, he said.

Pruziner agreed. “First day on a leg, this is really impressive.”

The knee’s steady whoosh filled the room as Reynolds walked back and forth along the bars.

Then, he let go.

“I tell you, I’m ready to go without these.”

Laughing, in unison, Caroline and Corcoran both said: “I know you are!”

Reynolds wasn’t listening. He wasn’t feeling. He was focused on doing more, doing better, going farther, hitting the next mile marker up ahead.

His new knee could move 6 mph, fast enough for him to run with it. Not today, or probably any time soon. But one day.

“Luther,” Corcoran said, “this is all very advanced for your first hour and a half.”

***

Reynolds spent the next two days practicing his gait, learning to sit and walk up stairs. Then he and Caroline flew home. They arrived in Charleston late, both exhausted. And he had scheduled an all-day training for the next day.

At 7 a.m., Caroline ground coffee while he showered. Piles of mail and newspapers still in their plastic sleeves sat on the kitchen island. His new leg leaned against a chair in the living room, patient emissary to his independence. First, he needed two arm crutches to help him practice.

But he would drive himself to work this morning — without Caroline — for the first time since the amputation. It was their 27th wedding anniversary.

He emerged in the department’s black polo and khaki pants, then chugged a protein shake.

“Alright, get out!” Caroline called.

A warm and sunny late April morning awaited. So did his unmarked black Chevy Tahoe. The car’s pedal could shift to the left side so he could drive it, or it could revert for other drivers.

Their daughter Grace emerged for a hug. Caroline kissed him through the driver’s window. Then he navigated in reverse slowly, steadily with the backup camera, using his left foot for both gas and brake. 

Soon he merged onto I-526. Cruising over the Cooper River, sparkling beneath the early morning light, he smiled. He loved this view, the vast water and sunshine, never more than now.

***

The next Monday, in early May, Reynolds began the morning trying to figure out the best way to get his new leg on while wearing pants. He finally fished it up through the pant leg, then managed to attach it, then buckled his belt around the bulky sitting socket, then tugged on his black shoe, none of which proved quick or easy.

Then he was off for his first day wearing it to the office.

When he reached the department’s parking garage, he backed into his spot and threw open the driver’s door.

His administrative assistant, Sonia Greene-Gathers, arrived to help. One arm crutch emerged from the driver’s side, then the other. She took them as he slipped out and then stood, unbuckling and re-buckling his belt so it fit around his sitting socket, something he was still trying to figure out.

A few colleagues gathered for the big moment.

“Morning!” he called to them.

Greene-Gathers handed him the arm crutches and took a few steps back. One hand gripping each crutch, he stepped forward with his left leg, then kicked his hips forward, as he had trained to do.

His right leg followed. Again. Again. Again. The whoosh of his new leg whispered from inside one khaki-clad leg.

Just one week, almost to the hour, had passed since he first tried on this leg — and not even one week since he first walked with it.

“It’s not easy,” he said. If this were a marathon, he figured he was in mile two or three. But practice was key.

Sgt. Craig DuBose followed, close enough to help, not close enough to look like he was helping.

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For the first time, Charleston Police Chief Luther Reynolds walks from his car into headquarters with his new prosthetic leg on May 2, 2022. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff

Reynolds picked up speed down a sidewalk, up a step, past a heavy door, then up four stairs — four mercilessly hard, narrow, concrete, you-don't-want-to-fall-down-them stairs. His three metal appendages vied for space against the narrow confines of the stairwell.

For a moment, he paused on a middle step. With a mere whisper of fate, he might have toppled backward.

Instead, he regrouped and clambered onward down a hall toward his office, calling “Good morning!" to people as he passed, a gangly complex of steel and determination.

Contact Jennifer Hawes at 843-937-5563. Follow her on Twitter @jenberryhawes.

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