After more than 30 surgeries on her leg — which has led to a fused ankle, metal in her toes, chronic pain and an off-and-on limp — it would be perfectly understandable for Amberly Lago to get all wistful talking about the days when she could run a mile in five minutes. Or when she made her living as a jazz, hip-hop and tap dancer and worked as a personal trainer.
Instead, she’s more about the present than the past. She revels in short beach runs, in belly dancing lessons, in time spent with her husband and two daughters, and in encouraging others. She embodies the word “resilient.”
The pivot separating the two parts of her life is a terrible accident in 2010.
Lago, a Greenville, Texas, native who now lives in California, was hit by an SUV while riding her motorcycle home after running 11 miles with a friend. In this excerpt from her book — “True Grit and Grace: Turning Tragedy Into Triumph” (Morgan James Publishing; $16.95)– she describes what she saw:
“Every beat of my heart issued a geyser of blood from what was a ruptured femoral artery in the middle of tissue damage that looked like a mangled mess of tissue. I grabbed for what was left of my leg and tried to keep the pieces from falling off and the blood from gushing.”