LARGO -- In the driving rain, the accident scene shimmered with lights and flares that February night near Gainesville. A 20-year-old University of Florida junior parked his car on the street with dozens of others and went to help.

Minutes later, a speeding van slammed into a tow truck, pinning the student between his car and the truck, nearly severing his right leg.

On the way to the hospital, a police car hit the ambulance. Cary Frounfelter's leg was injured even more in the second crash.

After three months and 19 surgeries, doctors at Shands hospital at the university weren't able to save the leg and it was amputated an inch above the knee. A body builder before the accident, Frounfelter went from 265 pounds to 115 pounds in the months afterward.

He returned to school in August, walking with an artificial leg and with a new goal in life.

"He got a really bad leg," said Frounfelter's mother, Gayle Johnson.

With that "bad" leg a career was born.

Frounfelter gave up his architectural engineering major and for the next two years devoted himself to designing, crafting and fitting better artificial limbs.

In the 15 years since the accident, he has made hundreds of new arms and legs, even his own, which allows him to play basketball and other sports.

Among his clients are Largo City Commissioner Jean Halvorsen, Donald Wolf -- St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport's "Goodwill Ambassador," and Clearwater Christian College senior Jason Lange, a former competitive wrestler.

"With Cary being an amputee, he understands," said Lange, who lost his right leg and very nearly his life in a horrific forklift accident while in the Army in Germany almost four years ago. "He imparts his experience, his knowledge and his wisdom. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be where I am -- I'd still be on crutches." Today, Lange runs, swims, plays basketball and other sports. "Nothing hinders me," he said.

* * *

Everything changed after I lost my leg," Frounfelter said. "To me, it was a blessing."

He completed studies at the University of Florida, Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville and Shelby State Community College in Memphis, Tenn. Two years after the accident, he went to work for an Ocala firm that made artificial limbs and braces.

He came to Pinellas County in 1994 and, in 1997, established his own company in Clearwater. He named it KAST Orthotics and Prosthetics after his children, Kristina (who died shortly before her first birthday from a heart-related problem), Amber, 8, and 5-year-old twins Schelby and Terrance.

A little more than a year ago, Frounfelter bought a 5,000-square-foot building at 825 Clearwater-Largo Road in Largo, a building he says the business already has outgrown.

KAST employs 14 people, including Frounfelter's brothers Casey and Craig and his mom. His wife, Terri, occasionally helps out with the payroll.

Frounfelter and his practitioners see some 60 clients a day in their homes, nursing homes, hospitals and the office. KAST provides pre-amputation counseling and evaluation in addition to post-operative and preparatory prostheses.

The cost of a below-the-knee artificial leg is $9,000, he said. An above-the-knee leg costs $17,000.

Bob Adames, who works for Frounfelter and has been making artificial arms and legs for 35 years, says he and his co-workers usually make seven to 10 legs a week.

The business does mostly legs.

"Arms last longer, at least five to six years," Adames said. "Legs last a year to a year and a half, due to weight gain or loss, swelling or atrophy of the stump, or new technology or because the leg wears out from activity." Socket changes can be made independently of the lower half of the leg, he said. Years ago, any internal changes required making a whole new one. "What used to take a couple of days, now can be done in 15 minutes."

It takes three to seven days to make a leg, he said.

Adames started crafting artificial limbs when they were made of wood and rubber. Now legs are made of light-weight plastics and components like carbon graphite.

They incorporate hydraulics and other high-tech mechanics in the moving parts. The leg is fitted with a soft foam cover to give it the appearance of skin and a special nylon is placed over that. Feet and legs are designed for everyone from fast-running athletes to slow walking elderly.

* * *

Pat Hirt of Largo recently got a new leg made by KAST.

"I lost my leg in 1972 in a car accident," she said. "I've had many legs since that time and none of them fit right. I always walked, dragging my leg behind me. Now, I'm walking so good, I can almost run."

In the three years since she had her right leg amputated below the knee because of blood clots, Largo Commissioner Jean Halvorsen has had two new legs and seven socket changes.

Frounfelter and Adames came to her house to fit her. "I never had to go to the office," she said. Both of her feet are now a size 91/2, she said. "My left foot was always larger, now they're both equal," she said, laughing.

"This leg is fitted so well that it's part of me," she said. But she has no feeling in the leg, she said, and sometimes she will step on someone without realizing it. She has been known to get the foot caught in the legs under tables. "It's a standard joke," she said. But her closest call in public came when she accidentally hit the leg's release button against a car door and the entire leg almost came off.

Lange has two different artificial limbs for his right leg: one for athletic activities and the other for everyday use.

"Most people don't know that I have a prosthesis," Lange said. The 25-year-old St. Petersburg resident and 1994 Pinellas Park High grad is about to graduate from Clearwater Christian College, be married and go on to a graduate school of theology in Missouri.

The wedding will be June 24, the fourth anniversary of his near-fatal accident.

When an infection developed in calluses on his feet in 1996, Donald Wolf thought antibiotics would take care of it, but a surgeon recommended amputation of both legs.

"I wasn't ready for that," said the 75-year-old Clearwater resident, the airport's goodwill ambassador.

During a trip out of town, he had to be hospitalized. "A surgeon looked at my feet," Wolf recalled, "and said they have to come off right away, otherwise that infection from those calluses will climb right up your legs and we'll be taking them off right up to your hip.

"That did it," Wolf said. When he returned to Clearwater he told his surgeon to "take them off." Both legs were amputated below the knee just before Thanksgiving in 1998.

When it came time to be fitted for artificial legs, he knew where he wanted the work done -- KAST. He had purchased special shoes from the company when he began having problems with his feet.

"The more you walk, the better you get," said Wolf. "Cary seems to think I do a fairly good job. I get phantom pains. I don't think anybody who goes through this doesn't get phantom pains."

He removes his legs at night and places special socks called shrinkers over his stumps to prevent swelling.

He drives a special car and uses a battery-powered wheelchair to get around for his volunteer work aiding travelers at the airport.

Wolf also visits some of Frounfelter's patients, he said, "who are about to lose a foot or a leg. They're not young, they don't know what to expect and here I've been though the mill."

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