Coyotes’ Craig Cunningham returns to ice with prosthetic leg, custom skate
Apr 4, 2019, 9:55 AM
(Instagram screenshot/@craig.cunningham14)
(Instagram screenshot/@craig.cunningham14)
After beating the odds and surviving a heart attack on the ice, former Arizona Coyotes player and current team scout Craig Cunningham has defied probability once again.
Cunningham posted a video to Instagram of himself skating with a prosthetic leg at the rink of the San Diego Gulls, the Anaheim Ducks AHL affiliate.
Attached to the bottom of the leg is a Tuuk blade, which is typical on skates.
In the video, Cunningham skates around, shows a sharp change of direction and even tries to skate backward. He’s a bit wobbly on the attempt, though.
“Still can’t skate backward,” he said on the video.
But a return to the ice at all is a major success for Cunningham. The former hockey player, drafted by the Boston Bruins in 2010, was claimed off waivers by Arizona in 2015.
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On Nov. 19, 2016, Cunningham went into cardiac arrest on the ice before the start of a game for the Tucson Roadrunners. He only survived after an Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) procedure that had only been done three times prior.
After, part of his left leg was amputated as doctors feared infection.
While his playing career ended after 63 NFL games, Cunningham returned to the league as a pro scout with the Coyotes. His number was retired by the team in October 2017.
And now he’s back on the ice.
