| Scott Hornbeak: One Good Turn Deserves Another
Forty-three years ago, a man decided to put his family—including his young son—in his truck and take a dusty, bouncing, cross-country, dirt-road drive down the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, all the way to La Paz, for a vacation. Deep into the Peninsula, the truck broke down. A few years later, the family made the same trek. That time, the truck rolled over and the frame was damaged.
Seventeen years ago, the city of Manhattan Beach formed a Sister City Committee, and they partnered with Santa Rosalia on the Baja Peninsula.
A few years ago, Manhattan Beach Fire Captain Tim O’Brien went to the sister city as a volunteer to do some teaching on firefighting and emergency medicine. He was impressed by the firefighters’ willingness to learn what he had to teach, and he was very impressed by the generosity and kindness of the people of Santa Rosalia.
In Santa Rosalia, O’Brien met German Alonzo Higuera Lucero. Higuera, a policeman, had lost his left arm in an automobile accident. O’Brien said Higuera had a chance to get a prosthesis when the president of the county of Mulege—that is roughly the equivalent of the supervisor of the county in which Santa Rosalia is located—offered to help him get one. O’Brien said Higuera told the president that he could use a job more, he had a family, so he was started with duties he could perform in the Santa Rosalia police department.
 That wasn’t enough for Higuera, though, as he recounted to Mariano Velazquez, a Manhattan Beach Sister City Committee member and longtime Manhattan Beach resident who took Higuera into his home for several days while he was here. At times he also acted as translator, since he speaks English and Spanish fluently but Higuera’s English is limited.
“He wanted to go through the police academy at La Paz, the capital of the state of Baja Sur, so he could be a full-fledged policeman,” Velazquez translated. “There was some resistance from the police chief at the time, but Higuera overcame that. The first test was on the shooting range when he was told he could shoot a revolver if he could load it himself. He had to shoot well enough to qualify in order to be a policeman. So he dropped the revolver in his pocket, grabbed some shells, loaded it and shot it. Later, they gave him a variety of weapons, including automatic weapons. He managed them all, as well as all the classes. He graduated from the academy with honors.”
Last year, O’Brien decided that no matter what, he would get that prosthetic arm for Higuera, so when he returned to Manhattan Beach from the latest training session, he started an intense personal campaign to locate a place that could, and would, help. He quickly found out that there is only a handful of places in the United States that have extensive orthotics-prosthetics programs, programs with the capability of offering the entire process from the initial consultation to sending the person off with a perfectly fitted prosthesis and the training to use and maintain it.
One of those places, O’Brien found, is California State University, Dominguez Hills.
The coordinator for the CSUDH program is the man who was the little boy in his father’s truck when it broke down all those years ago. Both times the truck broke down near Santa Rosalia, and both times the people of Santa Rosalia, in their kindness and generosity, took care of the family from California and helped them get their truck repaired. Scott Hornbeak, who has decades of international experience at all levels with orthotics and prosthetics, also has a lifelong soft spot for Santa Rosalia.
Of course he’ll do it, he said, and his experience and expertise will be completely free of charge. He could use it as a teaching opportunity. Besides, Hornbeak says, “I wanted to give something back to Santa Rosalia through some free professional labor for one of their native sons. Also, we, as professional prosthetists, always give back to the field that supports us when someone is in need.”
So a few months ago, O’Brien recounts, “We started through this arduous process to get a visa so we could get German up here. It took a LOT of paperwork, and attorneys, then the interview with the U.S. consulate. We actually got denied the first time. They said since he’d been a policeman less than three years, his economic ties to the community were not strong enough.
“I decided to drive to Tijuana myself. On the way to the door, Chief Groat [Manhattan Fire Chief Dennis Groat] said he’d just been talking to (Congress member) Jane Harman (D-36). So he called Harman, Harman called the consulate, German was approved. They even apologized for the inconvenience.”
Three weeks ago O’Brien went to get Higuera and started driving north to the Ossur Center in Aliso Viejo in Orange County, where CSUDH has many of its orthotics-prosthetics classrooms and its labs, established with Ossur’s help. “He was stunned by the urban sprawl, by the number of really tall buildings. He’d never been far from Santa Rosalia before,” O’Brien recalls. “We got him to the CSUDH center just at 5 p.m., Hornbeak’s quitting time that day. Not only was it time for him to leave,” O’Brien says, “but, as I recall, his son was going to be in a volleyball tournament. But Scott called his wife and asked if she could go alone, then he stayed there for hours that night to make a cast for the mold. The class was there, too.”
On Monday, June 5, Higuera tried it on and used it for the first time. “I could not have imagined I would have so much functionality with this arm,” Higuera beamed. “Now I have two arms again. It will make changes in my life. My mother will be happier, too. She wanted me to get a prosthesis.
“Dr. Hornbeak was very professional and very accommodating,” Higuera said through Velazquez. “Everyone, from the students to the faculty, everyone involved in this, has treated me very, very well. I am grateful.”
O’Brien was going to pay for Higuera’s arm himself, but he found the same kindness and generosity for this son of Santa Rosalia as was shown to the family of the boy in the truck years ago. “The more people found out about it, the more money was donated,” O’Brien said. “It was spontaneous, it was great. They would just reach into their wallets or get a checkbook and give, on the spot, to help German.”
It breaks down about like this:
- Cost of components for the arm: $1,100.
- Cost of materials: $74.
- Travel, attorneys, and other expenses: Hundreds of dollars.
- Cost of Hornbeak’s labor: Free.
- Having a useful left arm again: Priceless.
- Russell Hudson
Photos above: (At top) German Alonzo Higuera Lucero thanks Scott Hornbeak, program coordinator, CSUDH Orthotics and Prosthetics Program, for his kindness and services. (Below) Hornbeak's students observe the process of fitting Lucero with his prosthetic at the Ossur Center in Aliso Viejo.
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