Amy Purdy
If your life were a book, how would you want the story to go?
At 19, Amy Purdy went home from work early with what she thought was the flu. Less than 24 hours later she was on life support, with less than a 2% chance of living. It was bacterial meningitis. Over the next 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.
The first prosthetic legs she was given were so painful that she went home, crawled into bed and stayed there for months. Then she asked herself the question that changed her life: if my life were a book and I were the author, how would I want the story to go? She started daydreaming the way she had as a little girl, about walking gracefully, helping other people and snowboarding again. And then she went and wrote that story.
After a year of searching, she still couldn’t find legs she could snowboard in, so she and her leg maker built a pair out of rusted bolts, rubber, wood and neon pink duct tape. For her 21st birthday her dad gave her one of his kidneys. In 2005 she and Daniel Gale, now her husband, started Adaptive Action Sports to help young people and veterans with physical disabilities get into snowboarding and skateboarding, and their work helped bring snowboarding into the Paralympics. When it arrived, at Sochi in 2014, Amy won bronze in snowboard cross. Days later she was dancing on Dancing with the Stars with Derek Hough, and they came in second. At PyeongChang in 2018 she added a silver and another bronze.
In January 2019 an injury threatened her ability to walk again, and she had to start over. Her second book, Bounce Forward, is about that climb. The question still works. It’s worth asking on an ordinary Tuesday, too: if you were writing your life, what would the next chapter be?
Great quotes from Amy
From her TED talk, Living Beyond Limits, and her memoir, On My Own Two Feet.
- From On My Own Two FeetIf my life were a book, and I was the author, how would I want my story to go?
- Our borders and our obstacles can only do two things: one, stop us in our tracks or two, force us to get creative.
- My legs haven’t disabled me, if anything they’ve enabled me. They’ve forced me to rely on my imagination and to believe in the possibilities.
- In order to move forward, I had to let go of the old Amy and learn to embrace the new Amy.
- On her new legsI didn’t have to be five-foot-five anymore. I could be as tall as I wanted! Or as short as I wanted, depending on who I was dating.
- I’ve learned that borders are where the actual ends, but also where the imagination and the story begins.
- It’s not about breaking down borders. It’s about pushing off of them and seeing what amazing places they might bring us.
- From On My Own Two FeetSo I still got to my dreams. I just took a different route.
- From On My Own Two FeetMy biggest struggles have led to my biggest accomplishments.
Amy’s TED talk
Living Beyond Limits, from TEDxOrangeCoast, May 2011. Video from TED.
Read more
- Living Beyond Limits, with the transcriptTED
- On My Own Two Feet, her memoirAmazon
- Bounce Forward, her second bookAmazon
- Amy’s story, in her wordsamypurdy.com
- Adaptive Action Sportsamypurdy.com
- Her podcast, Bouncing Forwardamypurdy.com
- Amy PurdyWikipedia
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