Student who chose to have leg amputated looks to Paralympics
A STUDENT who paid £5,000 to have her leg amputated after an ingrowing toenail left her battling sepsis now plans to compete in the Paralympics.
Hannah Moore, 21, has been fitted with a £10,000 revolutionary prosthetic “cycling leg”, custom made to help her improve her times and qualify for Tokyo 2020 as a triathlete.
Her family paid for her to have her right leg amputated below the knee two years ago after years of excruciating pain had left her in a wheelchair.
She had undergone a routine procedure for an ingrowing toenail when she was 15 but it triggered a rare, debilitating condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) that blighted her life for four years.
Miss Moore, from Sherborne, Dorset, a former national karate champion, suffered with severe pain and swelling as the blood vessels in her right foot became infected by sepsis. Ulcers formed on her foot and, despite more than 50 operations and numerous skin grafts, they would not heal.
At that point she made the harrowing decision to have her right leg amputated to stop the pain, even though she was told there was no guarantee it would work.
The NHS refused to carry out the operation on the grounds that it was not the recommended treatment for CRPS and that she could still be in pain afterwards. But other surgeons said there was a chance the operation would take away her pain.
Miss Moore said that since the operation she had never looked back, had lost 4st and was fitter than before. “Having my leg amputated was the best decision I’ve ever made,” she said. “The things I have achieved I would never have without this operation. The hardest times were before having my amputation, as I was having operations almost every week in London and the pain was so wearing,” she said. “Since, I’ve never felt sorry for myself. It’s all been about making the most out of a situation, showing to myself as much as anyone that a ‘disability’ doesn’t have to define what you can and can’t do.” Last August, the Yeovil College student became the British PTS4 paratriathlon champion and this year she will begin a sports and exercise degree at Loughborough University. Miss Moore, who will remove the artificial limb and replace it with a blade for the running part of a triathlon, added: “I am a British champion and now my dream is to compete in Tokyo.”