Amy Purdy

Amy Purdy lost her legs to bacterial meningitis when she was only 19. Originally given less than a 2% change of survival, she beat her odds, battled depression, and rose to accept her new reality – but not any limitations. Today, she is the top-ranked adaptive snowboarder in the U.S., a three-time World Cup Para-Snowboard winner, the 2014 Paralympic bronze medalist, and the author of New York Times best-seller On My Own Two Feet. Purdy has evolved into a powerful inspirational and motivational speaker who has shared her story with millions of people around the world. She has been a featured presenter at both TEDx and POP Tech. Her TED talk is distributed to new, incoming TED speakers as the No. 1 recommended sample presentation. It has been viewed millions of times and translated into multiple languages. Through poignant and powerful stories, she shows audiences how to use our challenges to push past our limits and live a life without barriers.

Top-Ranked Snowboarder. After going through her life-altering experience, Purdy challenged herself to attain goals that even those with both legs would struggle to achieve. After being unable to find prosthetics that would allow her to snowboard, she built her own and began snowboarding just seven months after receiving her leg prosthetics. Three months after a kidney transplant, she entered the USASA National Snowboarding Championship where she won medals in three events. She is the only double-leg amputee competing at the elite world-class level, and she is considered one of the most commercially successful Paralympic/adaptive athletes in the world, having partnered with major brands like Toyota, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, the Hartford, P&G, Duracell, Kellogg’s, and Element.

Dancer, Model, Actress, and Designer Extraordinaire. Purdy’s creativity, positive outlook, and never-give-up attitude have opened countless doors. She competed on ABC’s Dancing With The Stars! and was the show’s first double amputee contestant. She finished second and joined the short list of contestants to never receive any score lower than an 8. She and longtime boyfriend Daniel Gale also raced around the world on CBS’s The Amazing Race, and she was featured in a national Super Bowl ad for Toyota in 2015. Purdy shared her remarkable story alongside Oprah Winfrey, as part of Oprah’s The Life You Want Tour, and she has been featured in a Madonna music video, creative projects for musician Nikki Sixx, and countless magazines including the 2014 ESPN Body Issue and People magazine. She was also a lead actress role in the award-winning independent film and named one of ESPNW’s “Impact 25” in 2014. Next up on her list is a clothing and cosmetics line.

Losing Her Legs and Living Life with No Borders. After experiencing flu-like symptoms, Purdy was rushed to the hospital in a state of septic shock. She experienced respiratory and multiple organ failure which caused her to lose circulation to her extremities. She was put on life support and placed into a coma. She needed multiple blood transfusions, lost both kidneys, and had to remove her ruptured spleen. Doctors had to amputate her legs below the knee, and she later received a donated kidney from her father. In 2005, Purdy co-founded Adaptive Action Sports, a non-profit dedicated to introducing people with physical challenges to action sports. AAS was instrumental in getting adaptive snowboarding added to the 2014 Paralympic Games.

Topics:

On My Own Two Feet: From Losing My Legs to Learning the Dance of Life.

Amy Purdy encourages us to take control of our lives, and our limits. The world fell in love with Purdy as the incredible girl with bionic legs who managed to out-dance her competitors all the way to the season 18 finale of Dancing with the Stars. She reveals the powerful, moving story of her personal spiritual awakening as a result of a sudden and often fatal blood infection that caused her to lose both of her legs. Despite her grim prognosis, she was determined to not just beat the odds and walk again but to create a life filled with bold adventures, big dreams, and boundless vitality—and share that spirit with the world. Purdy seized her second chance at life and earned a bronze medal in adaptive snowboarding at the 2014 Paralympic Games. Her story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the capacity we all have to defy expectations and rewrite our own stories.