Gabe Marsh No Legs and Only One Arm

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Gabe Marsh a 6-year-old with no legs and one arm, is 'the greatest accomplishment' on the Guntersville swim team

When the Marshes adopted another child, Ed told his wife, Ann, "Well, there's one you'll never have swim.''

His pessimism was understandable. Gabe, the seventh of their 10 adopted children, was born with no legs and one arm.

Even Ann believed her string of teaching children to swim had ended. By then, her streak had exceeded 60.

She and Ed had two biological children, six other adopted children and more than 50 foster children.

But Gabe?

Gabe, who'd had "more hair than he had body,'' as Ann put it when she saw him for the first time at Huntsville Hospital, just days after his birth.

Gabe, who was four pounds, two ounces when the Marshes took him home on April 6, 2004, a then-four-day-old whose future appeared little more than being "an invalid,'' in Ed's words.

Swimming, in their view, was for children with two arms and two legs.

"He was the only child we'd taken that I had doubts about,'' says Ed, 61, the retired manager of a poultry plant. "You figure, 'What can he do?' You figure (he's an) invalid. But he's a long way from invalid, as you can see.''

Look at him. He's 6 years old, about to enter the first grade at Guntersville Elementary, a devotee of cars and macaroni and cheese.

He's wearing his black-and-red swim suit and dangling his goggles near his bicep, all that remains of his right arm.

Late on the afternoon of July 6, he's preparing to swim three events for the Guntersville swim team against Decatur in the final meet of the regular season.

"They just announced the relay,'' Ed says to Ann and Gabe.

Ed picks up Gabe and carries him toward the pool.

Spectators sitting in lounge chairs line the Guntersville pool. Some of them watch Ed and Gabe head toward Lane 2 and whisper.

"You going to go off the blocks or the wall, son?'' Ed asks just before Gabe swims the final leg of the 8-and-under medley relay.

Typical Gabe. He'll go off the blocks, just like the other kids.

"OK, Gabe, get ready, son,'' Ed says.

In a swimming suit that's too long for him, Gabe balances himself on the blocks and strains for a better view of the swimmer who's about to finish the third leg.

Ed, Ann and others who have followed Gabe's progress are expecting big things. In the previous meet, Gabe compiled his best time of the season - 1:082 in the 25-yard short freestyle.

In Guntersville's previous eight meets, Gabe has improved his time in each meet.

"We have kids who can win state (championships),'' says Mary Shea Gaston, one of the Guntersville parent volunteers. "But he's our greatest accomplishment.''

Says Gaston's 12-year-old daughter, Virginia: "At first, I was worried he'd drown. When he actually swam, he swam better than other people.''

He's the fourth and final swimmer in Event 11, the 8-and-under medley relay. He leans over the block, sees the swimmer of the third leg touch the wall.

"GET OUT OF HERE," Ed yells.

Gabe bobs and twists, turning his head in and out the water, managing to avoid the ropes on each side of Lane 2.

But almost immediately, Ed senses something amiss.

"He jumped too deep," he says.

'You beat him'

Gabe was born on April 2, 2004, at Marshall Medical Center South in Boaz. Soon after his birth, he was transferred to Huntsville Hospital, where he was placed in the Neonatal Unit as a precaution.

When he was two days old, Holly Rogers, a social worker at the Department of Human Resources in Guntersville, called Ann.

"Would you take him?'' she recalls Rogers asking her.

The Marshes usually accepted "special needs and medically fragile children,'' as Ann puts it.

Gabe qualified on both accounts. At birth, he was 8 inches long, no more than 9, by Ann's estimate.

"What's wrong with him?'' Ann asked Rogers.

Even now, the Marshes are unsure of why Gabe was born with no legs and one arm. Ann's only explanation is that Gabe's birth mother perhaps took some medication for morning sickness, now outlawed, that's known for causing birth defects.

Gabe's birth mother had come to Marshall County from Mexico about two weeks before delivery. Ann wonders if Gabe's mother had taken the medication in Mexico.

Almost immediately, Ann knew she would take Gabe. But first, she wanted to talk to her husband.

When she told him about Gabe, she made sure to leave out the part about him having one arm and no legs. She wanted Gabe's birth defects to have no effect on his decision.

"He'd take every one they called about,'' Ann says. "He thinks every one needs a home.''

There was never much doubt, really. Both Ann and Ed wanted Gabe.

With Gabe's acceptance, more than 60 adopted or foster children had been through their home. Many of them, including six of the Marshes' adopted children, have been members of the Guntersville swim team.

"From the time we get 'em,'' Ed says, "she sticks 'em in the pool.''

Ann wants her children to swim so they won't drown if they fall into a pool - her biggest fear, she says.

But she didn't think Gabe would swim, either.

"I thought you had to have two legs and arms to swim,'' she says.

Last summer, Gabe began to show an interest in swimming. Ann was in the pool at the Marshes' home on Wyeth Mountain, occupied with the other children, when Gabe swam to her.

She was unaware that he'd even been in the water until she saw him swimming underwater.

"I guess he sees the rest of the kids doing it, and he wants to do it, too,'' she says. "I guess that's why he swims.''

With one hand and no legs, Gabe, all 27 inches of him, is also capable of driving a child's battered-powered four-wheeler.

"He'll guide the four-wheeler with his left hand and he'll push the (power) button with his nub,'' Ed says.

One day, Ed found Gabe in the loft of the Marshes' barn. Like each of the family's nine adopted children at home, Gabe had managed to climb the 13 steps to the loft.

"He just doesn't realize he can't do like the rest of the kids,'' Ed says. "He doesn't realize he's handicapped.''

Before the swim meet began last Tuesday, Gabe played Spiderman games on his Gameboy DS, using his nub and his left hand, his good hand, to maneuver the controls.

When it's his turn to swim, he swims slower than usual. In the medley relay, his time is hurt by a slow start.

In the 25-yard short freestyle, he finishes with a time of 1:17.72. A lifeguard lifts Gabe out of the pool after his second race, and Gabe appears disappointed.

He thinks he has finished last, but Ann has some news after she grabs him from the lifeguard.

"Look, Gabe,'' she says. "You beat him. He's still swimming."

Gabe sees the opposing swimmer still finishing the race and laughs.

"You've swam better than that,'' Ann tells him as he licks his goggles.

"Mom," Gabe replies, "can I have an Icee?"

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