Changemaker
Amy Purdy
TL;DR
The Paralympic snowboarder who lost both legs to bacterial meningitis at nineteen and co-founded Adaptive Action Sports so that other people with physical disabilities could get onto a board.
Amy Purdy was born in Las Vegas in 1979 and was nineteen when bacterial meningitis put her into septic shock. Both legs were amputated below the knee. She was back on a snowboard that same season, on snowboard feet she designed and built herself.
In 2005 she and Daniel Gale founded Adaptive Action Sports. She won bronze in snowboard cross at Sochi in 2014, then silver in snowboard cross and bronze in banked slalom at PyeongChang in 2018, and she announced her retirement on 19 March 2022 after a thirteen-year professional career. She finished second on Dancing with the Stars with Derek Hough in 2014, and her memoir On My Own Two Feet came out at the end of that same year.
Purdy works now as a speaker and a writer, and she hosted sixty episodes of a podcast called Bouncing Forward between 2020 and 2022. Adaptive Action Sports is the through line. It was set up because the programs she needed after her amputations did not exist, and it now runs winter snowboarding from its Mountain Center at Copper Mountain in Colorado, teaching recreational riders and training competitive ones. Its summer camps cover skateboarding and surfing.
Why OGSP Recommends It
Amy has spent twenty years making sure that the things she needed but could not find after her amputations are there for the next person who needs them. She writes and speaks for a living, and co -runs the organization Adaptive Action Sports help athletes that are amputees. All of this makes Amy a perfect candidate as a One Good Story Project Change Maker.
Related Resources
Key Takeaways
- She lost both legs below the knee at nineteen and was back on a snowboard that same season, on snowboard feet she built herself.
- Adaptive Action Sports, which she co-founded with Daniel Gale in 2005, helped get adaptive events into both the summer and winter X Games.
- She retired from Para Snowboarding on 19 March 2022 after a thirteen-year professional career, with three Paralympic medals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Amy Purdy?
Amy Purdy is a Paralympic snowboarder and speaker who co-founded the nonprofit Adaptive Action Sports. She lost both legs below the knee to bacterial meningitis at nineteen and was back on a snowboard that same season, on snowboard feet she built herself.
How many Paralympic medals has Amy Purdy won?
Three. One of them is the bronze she took in snowboard cross at the 2014 Games in Sochi. She retired from competition in March 2022.
Was Amy Purdy on Dancing with the Stars?
Yes. She competed in season eighteen in 2014 and reached the final. She was the first double amputee to appear on the show.
Has Amy Purdy written a book?
Yes. On My Own Two Feet, written with the journalist Michelle Burford and published by William Morrow in December 2014, covers her illness, her amputations and her return to snowboarding.