ANAHEIM : Her Best Gift--Freedom to Visit Beach

Of all the presents Halina Douglas will find under her tree Christmas morning, none will top the plastic leg brace that is already lying there.

The full-length flexible brace was a gift from Anaheim prosthetist-orthotist Kevin M. Carey, the man Douglas credits with giving her life back.

The device would normally have cost about $3,000--a luxury not covered by Douglas’ insurance--but Carey decided years ago that his patients were more important than insurance reimbursements.

To Douglas, 52, the brace means she can walk and sit on the beach and continue her career as a painter.

“On his own, this man designed this brace for me,” said Douglas, a Laguna Beach resident. “We’re not talking about a $50 gift, we’re talking about a $3,000 gift. And this was straight out of his heart. I don’t know how to thank him.”

Douglas had gone to several other brace makers and suffered through four ill-fitting braces before she found Carey. A 1988 car accident left her with a damaged knee and head injuries that affect her sense of balance.

Carey built her an earlier brace that worked perfectly, except for one thing.

“He said I couldn’t go to the beach because I would get sand in the hinges,” she said. “He must have seen my long face.”

A few weeks later, Carey called and said he had designed a new plastic brace that could be used on the beach. “He asked for nothing ,” Douglas said.

Carey said his goodwill came from his own conscientiousness as a prosthetist and inspiration from a doctor who saved his leg back in 1973 and personally nursed him through two years of rehabilitation.

“I saw in her face that (painting) is something that is her livelihood and that’s my job--to provide her with a product so she can pick up where she left off. I’m working on the future of my patients,” he said. “Also, maybe I’m just a perfectionist.”

Douglas is not the only beneficiary of Carey’s generosity. She said she has talked to two other patients--one of whom needed a limb--who have received work for free when insurance wouldn’t cover their needs.

As Carey put it: “I have an expression for how I do this--I say I’m funding health care.”