Nic Zanelli's RHEO KNEE Story

Nic is a 42 year old above knee amputee. He lost his leg in a motor vehicle accident 20 years ago while on leave from officer training in the Army. After being medically discharged, Nic began a career in IT, working for various telecommunications companies. Nic is married with two young children and resides in Sydney's lower north shore. Chasing after his kids keeps Nic active and his interests include astronomy and sailing.

In the early 1990's, Nic challenged the assumption that above knee amputees couldn't remain active and a meeting with Todd Schaffhauser in 1994 set him on the path to becoming an amputee athlete.  Nic worked with Professor Brendan Burkett OAM at his biomechanics lab at the University of Queensland and with the AIS disabled athlete programme, Catherine Howells OAM and David Howells OAM, developing the processes and the technology to allow above knee amputees to run well and remain active.

1998 saw Nic leave athletics to focus on his career and he has most recently been the Head of Technology at a telecommunications services company.

Nic was the first C-Leg user in Australia, fitted in 1996. He has tried several mechanical and microprocessor knees since then, including the previous versions of the RHEO KNEE models.

In February 2014, Nic was fitted with the RHEO KNEE 3 and has never looked back!

Nic’s latest challenge is to hike the Great North Walk, a 270km track between Sydney and Newcastle.