I put up a couple of links a while back while they were racing, but I'm going to go ahead and paste some details about Amy Purdy and Daniel Gale in this thread.
From an ABC news article, March 2012:Her boyfriend, Daniel Gale, was awestruck from the first day he met her back in 2002. He was smitten by her looks and impressed with her snowboarding prowess. He hadn't the vaguest clue that she had prosthetic legs.
"I think my reaction, I tried to keep it a little bit mellow so as not to be overly shocked, because at that point, there was already an attraction," he said. "Then she pulled up the other pant leg, not that that swayed me either but it was just, I was just like wow, this is even more -- she's even more incredible."
For Purdy, the attraction was mutual.
"I was actually surprised that he was so mellow about it, because I was used to people saying, 'Oh, my gosh, what happened?' or 'Whoa, I've never seen that,' or, 'Is that carbon fiber?' or something like that, and he was so mellow, he was just like, 'Awesome,'" she said.
Together, the couple made another dream of Purdy's come true by bringing adaptive snowboarding to the Winter X-Games seven years ago. Their next mission is to get the sport into the Paralympics.
[The committee announced in May that the sport will be included in 2014.]Amy Purdy's incredible story and abilities have earned her wide acclaim. Madonna asked her to appear in a music video that was later shelved, Motley Crue used her in a photo shoot, and she had a prominent role in the film "What's Bugging Seth?" And when Purdy is not busy on the snowboard, she is often skateboarding, wakeboarding or working on launching her own clothing line, Live Learn Grow.
Purdy has made a life's purpose of sharing her message of triumph with the world through motivational speaking. She recently gave a highly-acclaimed TED talk.
"Our biggest disability is our, up here," Purdy said, pointing to her head. "This is where we limit ourselves."
From their ADACS website:Daniel Gale and Amy Purdy founded Adaptive Action Sports in 2005 to help create opportunities for individuals with physical disabilities to get involved in skateboarding and snowboarding and all action sports. At the time there were limited resources for those of us who skate and snowboard and have some sort of physical disability. AAS was the first organization of its kind to focus on bringing these types of sports to the disabled community.
Daniel Gale is the current Executive Director. He also is a Sports Organizer for ESPN and the Summer X Games organizing the Adaptive Moto X Race, the Adaptive Skateboardpark Jam, Adaptive Snocross and the Adaptive Snowboarder X. He is a competitive snowboarder, avid skateboarder and all around board sports enthusiast. It was his partner, Amy Purdy's struggle to achieve her action sports goals despite her "dis"ability that inspired them to create Adaptive Action Sports.
Amy Purdy was an artist and board sport enthusiast as well growing up. Her goal was to spend a few years traveling the world and snowboarding when suddenly at the age of 19 her life changed forever. After a day of flu like symptoms Amy was rushed to the hospital in a state of septic shock and diagnosed with Bacterial Meningitis, a deadly blood infection. Amy fought for her life for nearly 3 months leaving the hospital a completely different person physically, mentally and spiritually. Amy loss both her legs below the knee and all kidney function but it didn't stop her from following her dreams. Amy is now a medaled snowboarder, actress, tv host, public speaker and Advocate for Element Skateboards.