Teen Plays Basketball With Dad's Handmade Crutch in China

A teenage boy who lost his leg to a rockslide is showing the world that dreams don't need two legs to take flight.

Apei, 13, lives in Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province, one of China's most remote mountainous regions. At age four, he went looking for his mother while she worked on their farm when a boulder tumbled down the mountain and crushed his right leg so severely it had to be amputated.

The injury left him isolated at first. Other children avoided playing with him, worried they might accidentally knock him down.

But Apei found basketball. Using a wooden crutch his father carved and bound to his trousers, he taught himself to dribble, shoot, and move across the court with surprising speed.

An influencer sharing videos of Apei playing basketball in late May changed everything. The footage showed him weaving around the court, crutch serving as both support and extension of his body, sinking baskets with practiced ease.

The videos exploded online, earning over one million likes. Viewers around China watched in awe as this teenager from one of the country's poorest regions refused to let his circumstances define his abilities.

Sunny's Take

What makes Apei's story so powerful isn't just his skill or determination. It's his father quietly crafting a crutch so his son could play. It's a community watching him transform from an isolated child into an athlete. It's strangers across China seeing themselves in a boy who simply wanted to play basketball with other kids.

On June 5, the Shenzhen Project Care Foundation donated a custom-fitted prosthetic limb made specifically for Apei. Specialists in Shenzhen measured and designed the artificial leg to help him move even more freely.

The new prosthetic opens doors Apei's wooden crutch couldn't. He can now run, jump, and play with greater ease. But that handmade crutch his father carved represents something no prosthetic ever could: a parent's love turning limitation into possibility.

Apei's basketball dreams are just getting started.