Legless Woman's

Remarkable best for Life

SILKE NAUN-BATES was elated when her grandparents gave her and her little sister a black Labrador mix as a parting gift after spending the Easter Holidays together. She named the dog Richie and took him everywhere, although he wasn’t yet trained.

On one of her forays through her hometown of Bochum in northwest Germany, Silke walked Richie on a leash when he suddenly broke lose, ran across train tracks and stared at her aimlessly from the middle of the rails. “I wasn’t thinking, I just wanted to save him,” she recalls. Instinctively, the eight-year-old sprinted to his rescue, but injured her knee in a fall. The pain was so excruciating, that she forgot she was on the tracks. Although she heard an approaching locomotive, she didn’t react quickly enough as her five-year-old sister Maria shouted, “Silke, the train!”

The freight train ran over Silke. She was flown to the University clinic in Bochum where doctors feared that she wouldn’t survive. They ultimately amputated both legs and stitched together her pelvis, all of which had been crushed under the wheels of the freight cars. It was the kind of life-changing surgery that would either make or break a person’s spirit. Fortunately, Silke Naun is an unbridled optimist.

Faced with the prospects of being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life and having to depend on others to help her with simple tasks like showering or climbing stairs, Silke refused to give up her independence.