SHAPLEIGH – In the weeks after the accident, Steven Loignon’s family was in anguish knowing what he would learn when he came out of the medically induced coma. While driving to work, Mr. Loignon’s vehicle was hit head-on by a car whose teenage driver was asleep at the wheel. To save Mr. Loignon’s life, doctors had to amputate both his legs above the knees.

Maureen Fecteau of Freeport, one of his two sisters, recalls being at his side when he awoke five weeks after the accident.

Additional Photos

Steven Loignon appears in photo with his two chocolate Labs. Mr. Loignon, a longtime Shapleigh resident, died Wednesday at age 47. Family photo

“It was almost instantaneous that it became apparent that he was going to bear this very well,” Fecteau said.

In the decade after the 2001 accident, Mr. Loignon demonstrated the strength of his resiliency. He returned to work, earned one of his two college degrees, started a non-profit organization and opened a sideline business — all while maintaining the positive outlook he had exhibited since he was a child. “It’s all good,” was one of his best-known mottos.

Mr. Loignon, a longtime Shapleigh resident, died Wednesday at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass., after an extended illness. He was 47.

Aided by a combination of prosthetics with computerized knees, foreshortened prosthetics known as “stubbies” and a wheelchair, Mr. Loignon led an independent life. He continued working as a manufacturing engineer for Pratt & Whitney until being laid off in recent years. He drove himself around in a full-size pickup truck, moved snow with his John Deere tractor and continued to hunt and fish.

Mr. Loignon turned a website his friends had created to keep each other informed about his condition into a clearinghouse for others who had suffered similar physical traumas. During his rehabilitation, he had noticed a lack of role models and information to help him visualize what his life would be like, Fecteau said.

The website grew into Stepping Back Into Life, a non-profit organization that provided information and inspiration as well as scholarships to people with disabilities.

A different type of void prompted Mr. Loignon to start Shapleigh Hops Craft Brewing. Because there wasn’t a shop in the area that catered to craft brewers like himself, Mr. Loignon started one out of his home.

When his health was too frail to keep up Stepping Back Into Life, Mr. Loignon continued to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Even as his health was waning, Mr. Loignon called a friend from the hospital to make sure a check at his home got sent to the group.

“He was never looking down. He was never ashamed, he was just proud and interested in other people. And very undiminished by what had happened to him,” Fecteau said. “I know a lot of people wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at:

akim@pressherald.com

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