It was a life altering accident, but OPP Constable Peter Tucker is feeling the best he has in years after receiving a new prosthetic leg.

It was a freak accident that happened in June of 2014. Tucker was riding an OPP motorcycle, training other officers for the Pan Am games, while driving on the highway he was knocked unconscious by a flying goose.

“Eventually I collided with a steel guard rail and it severed my left leg above the knee. No one ever expected me to come back to work.”

He has spent the last 3 years with a traditional prosthetic leg, until a few months ago.

Tucker is one of two people in Canada to undergo an osseointegrated prosthetic leg surgery, where a metal rod was inserted into his thigh, only a few inches protrudes from his leg.

He can feel his metal leg when he touches it, because the taps send a vibration into the rod in his thigh. Tucker says it’s the closest thing he will have to a real leg. So much so, that he’s back to front line OPP work.

He could have taken a hefty retirement package after the accident and never worked again and Tucker says it would have been the smarter choice financially but it’s not what he wanted.

“Coming back to work is the best medicine I could have. It makes me happy to come back to work.”

The 46 year old father of four says the worst day of his life taught him some valuable life lessons.