Villager Debbie Campana was “over the moon” Saturday afternoon as she anticipated seeing her son, Derrick, featured in a new television show on “Animal Planet” later that night.
“I’m blown away and just so proud,” said Campana, who lives with her husband, Jim, in the Village of Glenbrook. “I’ve been helping promote it throughout our community and my friends are going crazy over this. They’re sharing videos of Derrick and just going nuts!”
The first episode of “Dodo Heroes” centered on the work Derrick does with orthotics and prosthetics for animals. For instance, he made prosthetic legs for a loveable dog named Chi Chi that was left to die in a garbage bag in South Korea. And he created a custom brace for an elephant named Jabu with a severely injured leg and traveled to Botswana twice to help the huge-but-gentle animal.
“They asked for help and after veterinarians couldn’t help, Derrick said he wanted to deal with it,” Campana said, adding that Derrick’s twin brother, Darrell, is also highly successful as a landscape architect. “Derrick says he has the best job in the world. We’re just so excited.”
Campana said she’s also proud of her son’s determination when helping injured animals.
“It’s always been about taking steps to make sure the animal has no pain,” she said. “That’s his number one goal. Nothing else matters and he will follow through with them. It’s just so important to him.”
Campana said Derrick started out helping people – many from the military – with orthotic and prosthetic care after earning degrees from Penn State (sports medicine, kinesiology), Northwestern University (prosthetics) and the University of Connecticut (orthotics). Then one day a veterinarian came to see him with a dog that needed help with a leg injury – a moment that changed Derrick’s life dramatically.
“A lightbulb went off in his head,” Campana said. “He said, ‘Oh my God, this is so cool being able to help these animals.’ He researched it and nobody was really doing it. So he built his businesses from the ground up and now he’s helped more than 15,000 animals across the world.”
Campana said she’s also really proud of her son for helping Chi Chi, the golden retriever mix that’s now living with a loving family in Phoenix.
“Chi Chi was a victim of the South Korean meat trade,” Campana said. “But Derrick was able to fit her with prosthetics and she’s doing great.”
During a Facebook Live interview Sunday morning, 39-year-old Derrick Campana, owner of orthotic and prosthetic companies Animal Ortho Care and Bionic Pet, said he was thrilled to see Jabu enjoying a better quality of life after he put the large custom-made brace on his leg. And he also was quite happy that the elephant let him work on its leg without any problems.
“A six-ton elephant can crush you,” he said. “So if Jabu wasn’t happy and calm, it would have been very hard for me to work with him. But he was just a pleasure, a real treat to work with.”
Derrick said Jabu will require continuous care for the rest of his life. And he added that the Living with Elephants Foundation is trying to raise money to get a huge X-ray machine to use on the leg the elephant initially injured when he stepped in a large hole.
“He’ll have some problems and issues, like a lot of my patients do continuously through their lives,” he said. “But I’ll be there helping along the way to make sure he has that continuous care.”
Derrick, who appeared in a Dec. 20, 2014 Villages-News.com article after being featured in USA Today for his work with 3-D prosthetics, is getting ready to help a fox named Fig, the companion of a well-known domesticated fox named Juniper. Like all the other animals he’s helped, Derrick knows just how he’ll feel when Fig begins to experience an improved quality of life.
“The most rewarding moment is obviously that first step that they take, seeing that they’re happy and healthy and they’re just smiling at me,” he said. “Chi Chi has that magnificent smile, so I’m just so happy when I can see that the prosthetics are working. These are just such cool moments with these animals.”
As for Jabu, Derrick said it’s safe to say that he became more than a little attached to the big elephant with the large eyes who clearly appreciated his help.
“Jabu kind of looks into your soul,” he said. “I hope I can see him like once a year, just to go back and visit him.”
