At the age of 15, Amy Purdy developed her passion for snowboarding. But by age 19, all of her dreams were put on hold. She contracted Neisseria meningitis, affecting her circulatory system and causing a septic shock that gave Purdy only a 2% chance to live. Both of her legs were subsequently amputated below the knee and she lost both kidneys as well as her spleen. Her road to recovery would be long and grueling, and her chances of snowboarding again were slim. But for Purdy, the slightest chance was enough, and she fought her way back to the slopes. Purdy began snowboarding seven months after she received her prosthetic legs, and finished third in a snowboarding competition about a year after her legs were amputated.
“Snowboarding is what got me through my toughest days because I was so passionate about it that I didn’t even think about walking again, I just thought about snowboarding,” she said in a Sports Illustrated interview. She built her own prosthetic feet to enable her to snowboard and over time was able to continue her athletic career. She formed a non-profit organization, Adaptive Action Sports, to aid athletes with physical disabilities and campaign for the addition of snowboarding to the Paralympic Games, eventually succeeding in 2014. Purdy competed in the snowboard cross event in Sochi, finishing with a bronze medal, and is set to compete again in the 2018 PyeongChang games.
After getting the opportunity to speak on Ted in 2011, a speech that went viral, she recognized her potential as a motivational speaker. She now splits her time between snowboarding and motivational speaking, believing that her story has the ability to inspire so many others. In a Cosmopolitan video, she discussed her life motto of #LiveInspired: “I believe that when we surround ourselves with inspiration, then we become inspired and inspiration is contagious, so we inspire others to do the same.” So if you’re needing a bit of inspiration, check out some of Purdy’s talks online, and be sure to catch her competing at the 2018 games this February.
None of us have lived our full story yet, and it is important to recognize that so much of our story has yet to be written. Like Purdy told Sports Illustrated, “I just think that if you’re passionate and you persevere through your challenges, the possibilities are endless. The biggest thing I can say is, don’t let circumstances stop you. There’s always going to be something preventing you from your goal, whether its a loss of legs or anything else, but you’ll never be happy if you surrender to the circumstances.”