SHORT HILLS, N.J. – It’s a message to never give up on your dreams.
Amanda Sullivan became the first female amputee in the world to graduate from a fire academy.
Recommended Videos
The Short Hills, New Jersey woman is now officially a firefighter and took to Instagram to share the great news.
“I will make it my mission to ensure that I’m not the last,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan was run over by an impaired driver around Christmas of 2008, and said she ended up “injuring everything from her head to her toes.” Sullivan suffered both spinal cord and brain injuries.
After doing limb-salvage for years, Sullivan had to have her leg amputated. She has been an amputee for two years and has been using a prosthetic leg for almost a year and a half.
Sullivan had been an athlete her entire life and battled depression. She was able to bounce back and didn’t want this to define her whole life.
“I knew that it doesn’t matter what the scoreboard reads at halftime, that there is still time in the game that you can turn it around,” Sullivan said in an interview with ESPN.
Sullivan is a motivational speaker and enjoys running, hiking, skydiving, animals and adventures. She is also a “1st Adaptive Athlete” on the Spartan Pro Team.
“At the end of our lives all of our pain is the same ... and it doesn’t matter what happens to you, it’s how you respond to it,” she said.