WATCH: Boy without arms lands box jump

Posted By: Staff
July 25, 2019 @ 6:36 am
ABC Health

Tempura/iStock

Tempura/iStock(NEW YORK) — “Do it now. Jump up on that box now,” the trainer yells. “Go!”

Tim Bannon, 14, born without arms, gives it a try. He comes up short trying to jump onto the 20-inch platform.

“On the box,” she yells. “Do it again.”

He misses again, but refuses to quit.

This is NubAbility, an organization dedicated to instructing and motivating young amputee athletes like Tim. The camp gets its inspiration from its coaches, who are also amputees.

Coach Sabrina Reiswig has been an amputee since she was 8. She shows no mercy on Tim at this moment.

“All the people who told you ‘you can’t,'” Reiswig yelled. “Right here. Jump on it.”

Tim eventually sticks the landing. He falls into Reiswig’s arm and begins to cry.

That moment has racked up more than four million views on Twitter and more than 500,000 likes on Instagram.

“‘Can’t’ is not allowed at our camp,” said founder and coach Sam Kuhnert, who was born without his left hand. “We have that outlawed to the point where if a kid says ‘can’t’ on my baseball field, they have 50 push-ups whether they have one arm, no arms, whatever. They have to figure it out.”

Box jumps are typically performed by swinging both arms forward toward the box. Without arms, Tim was essentially jumping without momentum — a feat that’s much more challenging. It’s also riskier, as he wouldn’t have been able to break a potential fall.

“We have those arms to catch us, to keep our face from hitting,” Kuhnert said. “Of course, he has those coaches there to catch him if he needed to, but he’s essentially risking injury each time he attempts to jump up on that box.”

Tim nailed the jump before, but at this moment, he struggled. Brad Vineyard, who had to get his leg amputated in 2012, said Tim was doubting himself moments before that viral video.

“He was pacing,” Vineyard said. “He was upset. He was kind of frustrated with himself.”

Kuhnert says this resilience exemplifies the culture at NubAbility.

“We’re not a support group,” he said. “We’re not a group that’s going to reach down a hand to help a kid up. We’re going to teach the kids what they need to pick themselves up.