Thousands of animals saved

Meet Derrick Campana, an animal orthotist from Sterling, Virginia. Campana creates braces and artificial limbs to increase animals' mobility and improve their lives. 

According to Washington Business Journal, Campana is just one of ten people in the world who make prosthetics for animals. His practice, Animal Ortho Care,located in Sterling, Virginia, sends out kits to veterinarians and pet owners so they can cast molds of their patients or pets. Once the casting kits are returned, Campana crafts a personalized brace, or prosthetic, out of thermoplastic material. 

Despite his extremely successful business today, this was not a planned career path for Campana, according to MarketWatch. He went to school to learn how to fit humans for orthotics and prosthetics, but after a request to create a limb for a chocolate lab named Charles, he never looked back.

"I was doing the whole 'human thing' ...but a vet brought in her dog, who needed a prosthetic, to my human practice. I made a prosthetic that was a success, and I immediately knew that this was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life," he said.