The Story of Amy Purdy, an American Paralympic Snowboarder

Amy Purdy, an American Paralympic Snowboarder, found herself asking such a personal question after her dreams were paralyzed and her life was changed forever because of a vaccine-preventable blood infection. From an able-bodied massage therapist to the only female double leg amputee competing beyond the national level, how did she achieve this title?

Disability

At the age of nineteen, Purdy, a high school graduate, started a career in massage therapy while pursuing her dream of traveling and snowboarding. That dream was quickly halted when she contracted a rare form of bacterial meningitis and found herself in the Intensive Care Unit within twenty-four hours of experiencing flu-like symptoms.

Meningitis is caused by a bacterium called Neisseria Meningitidis Meningococcal Meningitis, which infects membranes around the spinal cord and brain, in turn causing swelling (CDC, 2017).

Consequently, both of Purdy’s legs below the knees were amputated, she lost her hearing in her left ear, her spleen was removed, and both of her kidneys failed, resulting in a kidney transplant from her father.

Throughout her painful recovery, Purdy held her spirits high as she was not going to let her illness stop her from achieving her dream of snowboarding at the competitive level. Finding herself with the desire to help others during her recovery, Purdy brainstormed ideas of how she could help individuals in similar situations participate in sports with their disabilities or after their recovery. Success and Determination Motivated by her own experience, Purdy co-founded Adaptive Action Sports, an organization that provides the opportunity for physically challenged children, adults, and veterans to participate in sports, with the main goal being to promote inclusion.

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Starting in 2005 with Daniel Gale, Adaptive Action Sports hosts events across the country through which disabled individuals play action sports, primarily skateboarding and snowboarding. Also, Adaptive Action Sports partnered with ESPN to host adaptive sports competitions at the ESPN X Games, held both in the summer and winter (Amy’s Charity Adaptive Action Sports, 2016).

With a powerful organization helping disabled Americans, Purdy used this success to persuade the United States Paralympic Board to introduce Paralympic snowboarding as a sport in the Paralympic games for the first time in 2014 (Kolur, 2017). With the support of the United States, Purdy was determined to represent her own country in the game she was most passionate about. Thus, she was insistent on competing in her first Paralympic games. After a long, grueling recovery, Purdy was set on snowboarding again, which started her journey to the world championships and onto the Paralympic snowboarding level. After winning both bronze and silver medals, Purdy qualified as a Paralympic competitor in the SH-LL1 class. This class includes individuals whose ability to balance is affected because they have an impairment in either one or both of their legs, making it harder to control the board and therefore execute the event like able-bodied individuals (World Para Snowboard, 2018). Sport Accommodations To accommodate both her new abilities and disabilities, Purdy needed proper prosthetic legs to carry her down the mountain on the snowboard. After trying multiple types of limbs, Purdy found that none of the legs had ankles that were mobile enough for her liking or flexible enough on her board. After the frustration of not being able to find adequate prosthetic legs, Purdy took matters into her own hands. She listened to her body and was determined to find a solution to her difficulties because she was personally experiencing these hardships, unlike those making the limbs for her. She felt like they were not understanding what she needed, so she took on the responsibility to create her legs (Kolur, 2017). As a solution to this challenge, she designed her prosthetic legs with her leg maker. Using rusted bolts, rubber, wood, and neon pink duct tape, she finally created legs that could accomplish everything she wanted to accomplish after a year of trying to find the perfect fit (Purdy, 2011).

Daily Life Accommodations For her daily life, the biggest modification that Purdy learned was a new walking pattern, and in turn a new riding style on the board. When wearing her prosthetic walking legs for the first time, Purdy was filled with frustration and pain but knew this was an accommodation she was forced to live with. Not being able to feel below her knees proved to be a challenge for Purdy when stepping on the snowboard for the first time after recovery. She noted that her mind and her body knew how to ride, but her legs could not bridge that gap. Apart from her prosthetic legs, Purdy had very limited accommodations in her life as she feels very confident walking with her legs. The few accommodations Purdy uses are found inside her home where she uses handicap benches in the shower and different techniques to move her feet and shoes when putting shoes on. Since she removes her legs when showering so they do not get wet, she needs to sit down as the portion of her leg below her knee was removed. With prosthetic legs made for walking, ankle movement is reduced, therefore making it a challenge when putting on shoes or walking on inclined surfaces. These small difficulties don’t challenge Purdy, instead, she just adapts to them. She may take a bit longer putting on shoes or she’ll stop and adjust her leg when walking up a hill or on a mountain, but that’s all. Now, a Paralympic medalist, author, actress, model, motivational speaker, and much more, Amy Purdy turned what others may think of as a disability into what they now see as an ability. Purdy’s goal is not to inspire others but to live as her inspiration, which others can learn from. Using her own story as a tool to help others, Purdy proves to be an example of resilience and determination even when times are testing. She works to redefine the word disability as not something that is limiting, but something that opens doors in an individual’s life, creating a new outlook for them.