Dick Traum, who was considered the primary individual to run a marathon on a prosthetic leg, ending New York’s race in 1976, and who went on to discovered the Achilles Observe Membership to encourage different disabled athletes in an period after they confronted boundaries to participation in sports activities, died on Jan. 23 in Manhattan. He was 83.
His loss of life, at a rehabilitation facility after a coronary heart assault, was confirmed by his spouse, Elizabeth Traum.
Mr. Traum entered the New York Metropolis Marathon the primary 12 months the race expanded to all 5 boroughs, within the early flush of the Seventies jogging growth. There have been about 2,000 runners, and Mr. Traum, whose proper leg had been amputated above the knee, was one in every of simply two with a incapacity. Given a four-hour head begin, he was handed at mile 18 by the eventual winner, Invoice Rodgers, who shouted, “Attaboy, Dick!”
Mr. Traum went on to race in additional than 70 marathons, at first on his synthetic leg and later by cranking a handcycle, a low, three-wheeled bike powered by his arms. In 1993, utilizing forearm crutches, he jogged with President Invoice Clinton in Washington.
The Achilles Observe Membership, which he based in 1983 and led for 36 years, expanded to 18 nations, offering free coaching recommendation and psychological help. Now named Achilles Worldwide, the group says 150,000 individuals have participated in its applications. In November, almost 500 disabled athletes and guides raced within the newest New York Metropolis Marathon, many within the membership’s neon yellow T-shirts.
“When an able-bodied runner will get handed by somebody on one leg, it modifications their notion of what the disabled can do,” Mr. Traum advised CNN in 2012. “It additionally modifications the best way disabled athletes understand themselves.”
A member of the New York Street Runners Corridor of Fame, Mr. Traum persuaded its founder, Fred Lebow — who created the New York Metropolis Marathon — to sponsor the Achilles Observe Membership. At first, they tried to draw contributors by contacting runners within the medical career who may need disabled sufferers. Nearly nobody responded.
Then Mr. Traum tried buttonholing individuals on the road. “I’d see somebody with a incapacity and would say, ‘Hey, how about becoming a member of Achilles?’” he advised The New York Instances in 1985. “Unbelievably, for each three individuals I requested, one would say, ‘Gee, that’s a good suggestion.’”
In 1984, he advised The Instances, all 13 Achilles members who had entered the New York marathon completed the race. A dozen years later, 260 disabled athletes entered the occasion, together with blind runners and people with a number of sclerosis, cerebral palsy, coronary heart transplants and autism. The group cites Mr. Traum as the primary individual to run a marathon on a prosthetic leg.
This system expanded to incorporate Achilles Youngsters, which helps disabled kids, and the Freedom Workforce, which trains wounded veterans, together with some at Walter Reed Military Medical Middle in Washington. Trisha Meili, who grew to become often known as the Central Park Jogger after a brutal assault in 1989, started working with Achilles throughout her restoration and later teamed up with Mr. Traum to arrange the Hope & Chance Race, a five-mile run-walk occasion in Central Park.
“We share an unlucky bond,” Ms. Meili mentioned of the contributors in a 2005 race. However “we’re pushing ahead and saying, ‘Look what we will do.’”
Richard George Traum was born on Nov. 18, 1940, in Manhattan. His father, Aaron Traum, helped run a household enterprise, the David Traum Firm, which bought zippers and different notions on East twenty sixth Road. His mom Lilly (Korn) Traum, was employed within the enterprise earlier than she married. Richard graduated from the Horace Mann College within the Bronx in 1958.
In 1965, whereas standing behind his automobile at a gasoline station on the New Jersey Turnpike, Mr. Traum was crushed by one other driver. Each his legs have been damaged on the higher thigh, ensuing within the amputation. He was in a Ph.D. program in industrial psychology on the time on the New York College Sloan College of Enterprise, the place he had earlier earned B.S. and M.B.A. levels. He accomplished his doctorate in 1973.
A former faculty wrestler, Mr. Traum grew sedentary and out of practice after his accident whereas working a human sources consulting agency he had based. When a good friend died of a coronary heart assault, Mr. Traum resolved to get again in form. He joined a health program on the West Aspect Y.M.C.A., the place, like different contributors, he was required to run for 10 minutes. At first he hop-stepped, discovering jogging on his synthetic leg laborious. It was three months earlier than he may run for 10 minutes.
“I’d ask my coach how I used to be doing in comparison with the opposite amputees, and he’d say, ‘About the identical,’” he later recalled. “The joke was, there have been no different amputee runners.”
After a 12 months, Mr. Traum ran a five-mile race in Central Park, and on Oct. 26, 1976, he raced within the metropolis’s 26.2-mile marathon, ending in 7 hours and 51 minutes. He was hooked.
Along with his spouse, he’s survived by a son, Joseph; a granddaughter; and a sister, Joanne Raffel. He lived in Manhattan.
At 78, Mr. Traum was the oldest New Yorker within the 2019 Boston Marathon, his 74th marathon, which he entered utilizing a handcycle. He had switched to the bike after having knee substitute surgical procedure on his left leg within the early 2000s.
Paradoxically, Mr. Traum had opposed wheelchair racers when the primary ones tried to enter the New York marathon in 1977. The Street Runners membership rejected the entrants on the grounds that they posed a risk to runners. Mr. Traum on the time referred to as wheelchairs a “deadly instrument” that would hit speeds of 30 miles per hour rolling off the ramp of the 59th Road Bridge.
However after a wheelchair racer took his case to New York State Supreme Court docket, the Street Runners reached a settlement and admitted him. Wheelchairs — each push-rim fashions and handcycles — ultimately grew to become commonplace.
After Mr. Traum retired as president of Achilles Worldwide in 2019, he grew to become president of the US Wheelchair Sports activities Fund, the place he was working at his loss of life.
