Adrianne Haslet-Davis lost her leg on April 15, 2013 when the Boston Marathon bombing occurred. A ballroom dancer for most of her life, the tragic event was detrimental in every sense of the word, and harmed a part of her critical to dancing.
Thinking she’d never stand, walk or dance again, Adrianne has defied her own self doubts through the power of rehabilitation and a prosthetic limb developed by MIT.
Less than a year later, she danced a rumba to the Enrique Iglesias song “Ring My Bells” onstage for the attendees of TED 2014 in Vancouver on Wednesday with dancing partner Christian Lightner. It was her first performance since the tragedy.
According to Business Insider, “the dance was a spectacular surprise ending for Hugh Herr’s TED talk, which demonstrated amazing developments in prosthetics. Herr heads the Biomechatronics Group at the MIT Media Lab, where he and his team create bionic limbs that replicate and can even improve on natural human performance.”
Herr met with Adrianne after the bombings, and he and his team decided to try and create a prosthetic limb that would allow her to get back to what she loved; dancing.
Here is a preview of Adrianne’s dance and her journey through rehabilitation:
CREDITS: Business Insider/WBZ
