Double amputee creates prosthesis for snowboarding and dancing

Amy loves life despite of her disability. To make her dreams come true, she developed several sorts of prosthesis. Initially, she created a prosthesis to practice snowboard. Later, she invented two prosthesis which allow her to dance.

Amy wanted to be free and live in a place where she could snowboard. In 1999, at age 19, she became a double amputee because of a bacterial meningitis. She was in the hospital - on life support - with less than a two percent chance of living. Over the course of two and a half months, she lost her spleen, her kidneys, the hearing in her left ear and both of her legs below the knee.

“When my parents wheeled me out of the hospital I felt like I had been pieced back together like a patchwork doll”, she recalled.

Just after she came out of hospital, she tried artificial limb.
“I thought the worst part was over until weeks later when I saw my new legs for the first time”, she said.

In fact, prosthesis were too heavy, too big, and were hurting her. These legs would not allow her to travel, and follow her dreams. But above all, these prosthesis were not appropriate for snowboarding. Amy never gave up on her passion about snowboarding, this is why she decided to make a pair herself. She did a year of research and she created - with her leg maker - prosthesis which were able to react within a thousandth of a seconds.

To make a pair of feet that she could snowboard in, they put random parts together. They used rusted bolts, rubber, wood and neon pink duct tape.

Thanks to her willpower, her family and her prosthesis, Amy became the highest ranked adaptive female snowboarder in the world, and she took the third place in the Paralympics games in Sochi.

In 2014, after the paralympics games, Amy participated to the eighteenth season of "Dancing with the Stars", a TV show where celebrities have to dance. Once again, her leg maker helped the star to be fitted with special prosthetics for her" Dancing with the Stars" performances. For this special event, she made two different types of prosthesis.

The first one, called “Runway”, which allowed Amy to wear high heels while providing the dynamic flexibility she needed for the performances in the TV show. The second one, called “Nitro”, which gave her the bounce and lightning fast energy return she needed for specific dance such as the Quick Step.

Thanks to these legs, Amy was able to follow her dreams again.

Adapted from: http://bit.ly/2qvG2C2

More info: http://amypurdy.com
https://youtu.be/qMQQ7h0NTsk