The Unstoppable Danielle Burt
In 2004 while riding her motorcycle on a San Diego road Danielle Burt lost control and was forced to lay her bike down. She was thrown 25 feet into the air and then 45 feet down a mountain slope. When emergency workers were able to reach her, she could hear her ribs snapping as they placed her on a backboard. In and out of consciousness, Danielle later learned that she had fractured her neck, broken all of her ribs and her left humerus, ruptured her spleen, collapsed a lung, and smashed the tibia and fibula on her left leg. With unstable vital, doctors placed Danielle in a medically induced coma for 5 weeks.
“During that time, they tried to clean out my right leg because there was a big open wound, but I couldn’t handle it. My vitals kept plummeting as soon as they tried,” Burt said. “It got to the point where I developed acute respiratory distress syndrome in my lungs. My body was trying to fix my leg instead of my lungs.’
Danielle developed gangrene in her knee, and that’s when doctors decided to amputate her leg. As soon as the limb was removed, her body could direct its healing resources toward making her core healthy.
She bounced back almost immediately after amputation. However, when she came out of the coma, she had no idea that her leg was gone.
“The fact that I was in a coma for over a month, all my muscles were gone, so I couldn’t sit up and look at my body,” Burt said. “Once I found out my leg was gone, I felt like it was the end of the world. This was 11 years ago, so at that time, being an adaptive athlete wasn’t well known. I thought that my life was over.”
Danielle’s life was far from over, and eleven years later she is thriving. We here at Bing Surfboards are so proud that she has chosen to invite us into her amazing story by riding a Pintail Mini as her board of choice.
Get to know Danielle more in the full article about her here.
Or through her social media pages: Facebook, Twitter, and on Instagram.
AND be sure to vote for her Doritos Superbowl Commercial here.
Also in Bing Surfboards Blog
THE DESTINATION IS THE DESTINATION
THE BOARDROOM 2023 COMPETITOR INTERVIEWS
Name, hometown, and surfboard brand.
Josh Peterson, hometown Virginia Beach (born) Haleiwa (currently living), and my brand is Peterson Surfcraft.
When and where did you start surfing? Describe your first surfboard.
I started surfing when I was about 15 in Virginia Beach, and my first board was an old funboard from WRV that was about 7’6” and had glass on thrusters and an insane airbrush.
