When Amy Purdy Gale was 19 years old she contracted Neisseria meningitis which affected her circulatory system and put her into septic shock. His disease progressed so fast that doctors only gave him a 2% chance of survival, but he survived and what he has accomplished is nothing short of a miracle. You see, not only did he lose both kidneys and spleen, but meningitis also took both legs below the knee.
A lot of people when faced with those odds just give up, but Amy struggled and less than a year after her leg braces got on, she hopped on a snowboard. They followed competitions around the world and she won a Paralympic bronze medal at the Sochi Games in 2014. Yes, she is an Olympic medalist in a sport she didn’t even try when she had both legs. Not that it stopped there. Any is a massage therapist and soon became involved in modeling and acting as well, she has appeared on a few shows over the years and in 2012 competed on the reality series The Amazing Race. She, along with her future husband, were a team on the show, but sadly they were eliminated in the second week.
Don’t worry though, because there were bigger and brighter things ahead, like a season on another reality show, Dancing With The Stars. This time Amy Purdy made it to the final and finished second behind winner Meryl Davis. Not only is she the first person with a double amputation to compete on the show, she is also one of the few dancers who never scored below 8 throughout her career. In fact, his average performance is in the top 10 in the show’s history.
Amy Purdy Gale is also an author, motivational speaker, clothing designer and runs a non-profit organization called Adaptive Action Sports that works with disabled people who want to play action sports like surfing, snowboarding and the like and also with those who want to Get in the arts and music.
Amy shows us that giving up is not an option. If you have dreams, get them no matter what life throws at you. Yes, for some Amy is a disabled person, but for her she is a woman with a mission to do whatever she has in mind and heart. She truly is an inspiration to all of us.