ABSTRACT
David, a healthcare worker, was visiting a rural Mexican mountain village when a father invited him home to meet his 13-year-old son, Pepe, who had never walked because he had had polio as a baby. David asked if they had tried crutches. The father replied that they could not afford to travel to the city to get some. David looked around, borrowed a machete, and cut branches to make crude crutches. The father protested they would not work, and, sure enough, when Pepe tried them, they broke under his weight. The father then took the machete and cut a more appropriate species of wood. Following David’s example, he skillfully fashioned functional crutches. Within half a day Pepe was proudly walking for the first time in his life (Werner, 1990).
