Armless, he embraced life

Carrboro man whose feet did it all dies in auto accident

CHAPEL HILL -- Marty Ravellette took his seat Monday morning at the Sutton's Drug Store counter and, for the last time, gripped a waiting coffee cup with his foot.

Ravellette, 67, was born without arms but used his bare feet for everything from eating breakfast to saving a woman from a burning car. He died Monday in an auto accident of his own.

"It's just so hard to imagine," said John Woodard, owner of Sutton's Drug Store on East Franklin Street, where Ravellette had been a fixture since 1991.

"We're all going to look outside [this] morning to see if his truck's out there or not."

Ravellette, a landscaper from Carrboro, was driving a GMC van across the intersection of N.C. 87 and East Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road in Alamance County on Monday morning when a large truck collided with the side of the vehicle, said Ray Estes, a longtime friend.

Ravellette was thrown from the car, and his head struck a pole, killing him, Estes said. He could not wear a seat belt because it kept him from using his left foot to steer, Estes said. (He worked the gas and brake pedals with his right.) His wife of 17 years, Maree, was in the van but was unhurt.

A spokesman for the N.C. Highway Patrol said Monday evening that authorities were not ready to release information about the accident.

Ravellette operated a landscaping business for years. Part of his local fame came from the double-takes he would induce in passers-by: Was he really mowing grass, driving, eating a biscuit with no arms? He was.

Bill Hayes, who filmed the documentary about Ravellette called "No Arms Needed: A Hero Among Us," said he once saw Ravellette using a chain saw to cut off the limbs of a felled tree -- in the middle of a hurricane.

The world learned of Ravellette in 1998, when he rescued an elderly woman from a burning car on the shoulder of U.S. 15-501 in Durham. He kicked the window open, and Maree helped the woman out.

His heroism attracted international media coverage, and Ravellette appeared on Rosie O'Donnell's talk show. He used the publicity to advocate for the rights of people with disabilities.

Ravellette learned independence early. He was born in Indiana in December 1939, and his parents sent him to an orphanage when he was 2 months old. A 2003 documentary shows Ravellette as a baby gripping a bottle with his feet.

"That was the start of learning to do things myself," he told The Chapel Hill News in 2003.

Woodard recalled the first time Ravellette strolled into Sutton's and propped his foot up on the counter. Taken aback, the manager asked Woodard whether he should say anything to this armless stranger.

"I said, 'Well, what in the world are you going to say to him? Just don't say anything,' " Woodard said.

The same didn't go for Ravellette. "He hadn't even left the dadgum store before, next thing you knew, we knew all about him," Woodard said.

Ravellette, a fan of Duke University sports, relished getting a rise out of Sutton's patrons with boasts of the Blue Devils' superiority to the Tar Heels. but his allegiance to Duke didn't stop him from giving motivational speeches to UNC-Chapel Hill athletes in recent years. He made friends with many of them at Sutton's, a popular hang-out for them.

"They're going to be devastated," said Cricket Lane, director of UNC-CH student athlete development.

Driving was a major point of pride for Ravellette, Hayes said.

"I never worried about his driving," Hayes said. "It showed that he could do things that other people could. He was a very fiercely independent person."

(Staff writer Jesse James DeConto contributed to this report.)