Springfield man works to rid world of land mines

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- More times than he can count, Ken Rutherford has publicly shared the gory details of the day in 1993 when both of his legs were blown apart by a land mine while he was working in Somalia.

He puts a face to the need to remove land mines and other explosive remnants of war, a cause becoming more urgent as fighting continues in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"A lot of people believe that when the war ends, people go home and it's going to be safe," said Rutherford, an associated political science professor at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield. "But that's not the end of it. There are land mines and other explosive remnants of war to deal with. Things that are left behind to kill or injure innocent people."

Landmine Survivor's Network, which Rutherford helped co-found, estimates there are 80 million land mines buried in at least 60 other countries. Each year they kill or maim about 20,000 people, one-third of them children.

The trouble is, many of the land mines and unexploded ordnances often are invisible to innocent passers-by, Rutherford said. Farmers trip them while working their fields. Vehicles run over them and passengers are injured or killed.

That is how Rutherford became a bilateral lower leg amputee.

He was working with a credit union in Somalia to provide loans to help rebuild the country ravaged by war.

On Dec. 16, 1993, Rutherford was riding in a Toyota Land Cruiser when the vehicle hit a small gully and lurched forward. Rutherford looked down at his feet.

"A bone was sticking out where my right foot used to be," he said. "The actual foot itself was hanging by stretched skin toward my knee."

Rutherford was flown to Nairobi, where one of his legs was amputated. He eventually was transferred to the United States, where he has had at least 10 surgeries, including the removal of his other leg.

Rutherford doesn't bother hiding his two prosthetic legs under long pants on warm days.

"It's important that people see the impact that land mines have on innocent people," Rutherford said.

But Rutherford wants people to do more than see. He wants them to donate their money and time to help rid the world of land mines.

It's a costly and dangerous venture. While it costs as little $3 to produce a land mine, it can cost up to $1,000 to remove it, Rutherford said.

Humanitarian de-miners often must work on their hands and knees. Some use metal detectors, while others have dogs to locate land mines. Under perfect conditions, one de-miner can clear seven to 10 square meters a day, Rutherford said.

"We need to clean up these weapons of war," Rutherford said. "How can we have democracy with all this stuff laying around?"