YORK COUNTY, Pa. — Joshua LaBure is a driver for UPS.
“I’m in and out of my truck quite a bit throughout the day," he said. "I’m carrying a variety of packages, large, small, big, heavy. A little bit of everything so it’s very physically demanding."
Earlier this year, while delivering a package to a home, LaBure fell and injured his ankle and knee.
“I sustained several injuries in my leg," he said. "Several breaks, ligament, tendon damage."
Now, he’s in the process of recovery, thanks in part to a personalized program at Wellspan health that carefully examines a patient’s job.
Those at the program then design an individualized therapy program that helps them regain the particular skills they need to return to work and to life.
“He does a lot of package handling," said Rick Pickett, an occupational therapist, at WellSpan Health of LaBure. "He has to get into a truck, out of the truck around 250 times a day. He has to be able to carry packages upstairs, up long stairwells, up hills and so forth and down. So we actually work on those types of things here that are kind of exactly what his does as his job."
LaBure started the program back in March and goes to the center five days a week, four hours a day.
“We start with a little cardio, and then I'll stretch for 20 to 45 minutes, and then a lot of times I’ll jump into my work circuit, which is the very specific part that they have me doing that’s tailored to my job," he said. "The lifting, the carrying, the pulling, the pushing."
He says this program will get him back on his feet and doing what he loves in no time.
“I’m eager to get back and do my job and service my customers," said LaBure.
LaBure has a procedure in October that will determine how much therapy he will need going forward.