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The Incredible Man With Legs Like Scissors

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A Detroit man taught himself to walk by crossing his legs like a pair of scissors — after doctors said he’d never survive past toddlerhood.

Marty Sheedy is 33 years old, stands 4 feet 10 inches tall, and weighs about 60 pounds. He was born with Arthrogryposis, Prune Belly Syndrome, and congenital hip dislocation — a combination that left him without abdominal muscles, without functioning hip joints, and with permanently dislocated hips. The Truly series “Born Different” profiles him in “The Incredible Man With Legs Like Scissors,” a portrait of a man who defied a prognosis nobody expected him to outlive.

• Marty Sheedy, 33, of Detroit, Michigan, lives with Arthrogryposis, Prune Belly Syndrome, and congenital hip dislocation, standing 4 feet 10 inches tall and weighing roughly 60 pounds.
• Doctors warned his parents, Jodie and Marty, that he would likely not survive past age two or three and would never walk unaided; he underwent corrective childhood spinal surgery and received a kidney transplant in June 2018 after kidney failure tied to his Prune Belly Syndrome.
• Sheedy independently developed a cross-legged, scissor-style gait as a child and now runs the non-profit Project Scissor-Gait Foundation, traveling the U.S. to give talks on rare congenital conditions.

A Diagnosis Meant to End the Story Early

Prune Belly Syndrome is rare enough on its own — it strips away abdominal muscle development and frequently damages the kidneys and urinary tract. Layer Arthrogryposis on top of it, with joint contractures locking down mobility across multiple parts of the body, and you get a set of symptoms doctors saw as close to unsurvivable. Sheedy’s hips never formed working joints at all; they’ve stayed permanently dislocated since birth, alongside limited joint mobility and muscle weakness throughout his frame.

His parents, Jodie and Marty, were told flatly that their son probably wouldn’t make it past age two or three, and that if he did, he’d never walk without assistance. That prognosis is the entire premise “Born Different” builds its episode around — a baseline expectation that Sheedy has spent three decades disproving.

Building a Walk Nobody Taught Him

Without hip joints to pivot on, conventional walking wasn’t an option. So as a child, Sheedy worked out his own solution: a cross-legged, scissoring gait that lets him move without a wheelchair, using his legs in a way that essentially replaces the hip mechanics he doesn’t have. It’s the gait that gives the episode its title and gave him his nicknames.

Doctors told his parents he wouldn’t survive past age two or three — Marty Sheedy is 33, and he built his own way of walking from scratch.

He’s leaned into the names that came with it rather than away from them, going by “scissor man” and “scissor legs” as identifiers he’s chosen for himself rather than labels forced on him. The childhood spinal surgery he underwent to address complications from Arthrogryposis was part of keeping that mobility functional long-term, and it held up well enough that the scissor gait has remained his primary way of getting around into adulthood.

A Kidney Transplant and a Life Still Moving

Prune Belly Syndrome’s effect on the kidneys eventually caught up with him: Sheedy went into kidney failure and received a transplant in June 2018. It’s the kind of medical hurdle that would sideline most advocacy work, but it sits alongside — not instead of — the rest of his story, another data point in a life built around outlasting a prognosis that never accounted for how determined he’d be.

Taking the Story on the Road

Sheedy founded Project Scissor-Gait Foundation to turn his own case into something educational rather than just personal. The non-profit sends him across the United States delivering motivational talks and briefing audiences on rare congenital conditions most people have never heard named, let alone seen up close. It’s the same instinct that runs through other rare-condition profiles that have found an audience online — people who’d rather explain their bodies than have strangers guess at them.

That instinct also connects him to a small lineage of documentary subjects who’ve made unusual physical stories part of public record, in the same vein as the profile of Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in recorded history, whose life became a permanent reference point for how rare conditions get understood by the public.

Project Scissor-Gait Foundation doesn’t have a fixed touring schedule laid out in the episode, but the mission is straightforward: Sheedy keeps booking talks, keeps explaining Arthrogryposis and Prune Belly Syndrome to rooms full of strangers, and keeps walking in on his own terms — scissors and all.