The Amputees in Action story begins back in the depths of the Irish country side whilst filming a little known film called “Saving Private Ryan”, you may have heard of it! Several amputees were used on this film to add that extra shock to the imagery that you see. Somehow during this film we were handed over to the stunt department, needless to say the Stuntmen saw the potential of using amputees and used us accordingly. Just imagine it bodies and parts of bodies being thrown all over the place, have a look at the film and see for yourself. The idea of an agency that specialises in just amputees was discussed with a fellow amputee whilst sitting in his mobile deck chair (Citroen Diane, no offence meant) after a busy day’s filming on the “Ryan” set; we tried to figure out how to go about this huge task. This is where the idea got shelved and we went our separate ways.

Just like bad pennies, the same amputee’s kept meeting up on some of these smaller art house production’s like “Gladiator” and “Band of Brothers” ( BoB for short) look them up they are quite good. It was here that we faced the same problem – no-one knew what to do with these people with body parts missing! Answer … yes you got it, the Stunt team ended up with us so we got killed, shot, blown up and thrown around in lots of different and imaginative ways (sounds awful but it was a lot of fun). Again the idea of an agency that specialises only in Amputees was talked about again. Whilst we were on the books of many mainstream agencies, the opportunities were lessened because they did not know what to do with us, or how to treat us. So a couple of us amputees decided to bite the bullet and set up an agency just for amputees, but a few more of those dammed films got in the way first - like how to be a zombie in quick time by a guy called dead or was it Shaun. Then we had to deal with a love story - how do you shoehorn an amputee into a love story well they managed to do it in this “ Troy” thing which was a very hot and dusty film.

Eventually we did it … Amputees in Action Ltd was launched in March 2004. Now to the serious part none of us are Stuntmen or will ever claim to be but we are asked to perform in specialised action scenes which normally mean that you are asked to die in a certain way. Most of the time you will be covered in mud, blood and gunk but hey, who said that acting was easy, even for an extra or featured extra which is where we find ourselves now. Many of the amputees have now undertaken competency training in combat skills, horsemanship, sword fighting and armoury. These are basic awareness courses that enable the amputee to be prepared for any role – it takes skill to be hacked, shot or blown up. It does not stop there. Our amputees are often used as body doubles. Take Severance, it was a real person stuck in the bear trap … yes you guessed it – a lower leg amputee – giving depth to that scene because it looked real.

Most recently our artistes have auditioned and been picked for supporting roles