Calgary, AB - iWALKFree™ is a revolutionary new medical crutch that frees both hands of people who have non-weight bearing lower-leg injuries, surgery or permanent disabilities. Now the inventor of the hands-free crutch, farmer and carpenter Lance Matthews of Mansfield, Ont., has received a prestigious Manning Innovation Award.

Matthews, 45, literally "hit" upon his idea when he slipped on a barn roof and fell to the ground, breaking one of his feet. After enduring a few days on conventional underarm crutches, the former national Enduro motorcycle champion decided there had to be a better way to get around.

"In the 21st century, we've got a space probe going past Jupiter and we can land spacecraft on Mars. What are we doing walking around on something that resembles a branch cut off a tree?" he says.

The iWALKFree™ crutch offers greater mobility and independence for people with a broken foot or ankle, a sprained ankle, surgery or diabetes-related foot problems. The hands-free crutch also eliminates medical complications, such shoulder joint degeneration and carpal tunnel syndrome, that can be caused by conventional crutches.

Matthews has won the Pratt & Whitney Canada $5,000 Manning Innovation Award. The annual awards program has recognized leading Canadian innovators since 1982 with $135,000 in prize money each year. The Manning Innovation Awards Foundation will announce all five of this year's recipients, including the $100,000 Manning Principal Award, throughout September prior to the annual awards gala Oct. 1 in Calgary.

Matthews crafted his first hands-free crutch out of wood and Velcro straps. The device wrapped around his upper leg and included a wooden shelf on which to rest his flexed knee and weight.

"The second I made it and it touched the ground, I was mobile," he says. During his six-week recovery from his broken heel, he was able to go on a planned vacation that included lots of walking.

Ankle sprains and foot fractures are the most common lower-leg injuries in Canada and the U.S.

Doctors at the fracture clinic at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences in Toronto were so impressed with Matthews' hands-free crutch, they suggested he develop and patent it.

"iWALKFree™ has enormous potential in the management and rehabilitation of traumatic lower extremity injuries," notes Dr. Hans Kreder, trauma and joint replacement surgeon at Sunnybrook.

In a small pilot study on diabetic wound care, underway at St. Peter's Hospital in Hamilton, Ont., a young patient with a foot ulcer, treated for four years, is now healing rapidly on the iWALKFree.™

And Hamilton Tiger Cats quarterback Cody Ledbetter, after being injured last year, said: "iWALKFree™ allowed me to continue with virtually all my regular workouts."

iWALKFree™ crutches - now made of extruded aluminum and engineered plastics - are sold and rented around the world. Matthews, through his company, CANADALEG INC., plans to expand distribution into the European market and, to help land-mine victims, into developing countries.