FOND DU LAC (NBC 26) — Saul Bosquez joined the army in 2006 and was stationed in Iraq. But soon after his deployment, his life changed forever.
"I was deployed about six months and I was in a roadside bomb that resulted in the amputation of my left leg below the knee," Bosquez said.
His injury left the former athlete uncertain of his future.
"One of the first things I thought of was, you know, I'm not going to be able to walk around with my kids or play with my kids," Bosquez said.
While learning to move with a prosthetic leg isn't easy, Bosquez said his recovery was quick. In just a few months, he was able to run again, and he credits his success to the work he did in physical therapy.
"I did physical therapy every morning from eight to noon, five days a week," Bosquez said. "So I know firsthand what a good physical therapist can do for you."
After returning home, he joined a baseball league for amputees. That's where he met his wife Jessica, who was a physical therapist for the team.
But Jessica was noticing a problem among her clients: insurance coverage.
"I saw my patients getting frustrated because care was getting more expensive," Jessica Bosquez said. "There were many times I had patients get cut off from insurance payments and funding for their therapy before their full benefits were reached. So I finally got frustrated enough that I came home one day and sat down with my husband and said, 'There's got to be a better way.'"
So the couple turned their passion for physical therapy into Peak Rehab, a cash-only physical therapy clinic. Their hope is to reach more people without going through the hassles and expenses of insurance.
"You don't need a doctor's referral to come see us. You don't need insurance pre-approval," Jessica Bosquez said. "We also don't have insurance is telling us what we can and cannot do. We have the freedom to just do what you need."
The Bosquez family also hopes to help more veterans like Saul, who otherwise have to travel long distances to VA facilities in Appleton, Green Bay or Milwaukee.
"There's plenty of veterans here in the Fond du Lac area where, you know, we don't want to have to go all the way there if we just had a closer place," Saul Bosquez said. "I would love to have to be that place where the vets can come in and get their therapy."
Their hope is to help injured people return to their normal lives, just as Saul did 15 years ago.
"I know firsthand what it's like to have it possibly taken away from you, and getting that back is something that you really can't put a price on," Saul Bosquez said.
