'I Didn't Just Survive I Thrived'

Rare flesh-eating bacteria took Aimee Copeland's limbs in 2012. But she persevered

- CAITLIN KEATING

From her hospital bed in Atlanta in the months after a ferocious flesh-eating bacteria destroyed her limbs in 2012, Aimee Copeland began to dream of a way to support patients like her, stuck inside watching soaps as they worked to rehab their bodies and spirits. “I could feel the impact that was having on my psyche and was like—we need to get outside,” says the Georgia native, whose plans of becoming a wilderness therapist were derailed when she contracted rare necrotizing fasciitis from a deep gash after a zip-lining accident plunged her into the water. She needed four lifesaving amputations—one each on both arms and both legs. As she recovered, Copeland, then 24, thought of the hovercraft technology teased in Back to the Future Part II. “My wheels started turning,” she says. “I wanted to bridge the gap between the outdoors and disabilities without building boardwalks all over nature. I wanted it to be wild, and I wanted to be able to go. That was my challenge.”