![Basketball Girl Qian Hongyan,钱红艳](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivRUublEVAnTkz0ywJOSzWNQ7zG09mPOxf6ExxJ1uBx-kohmd5AkqqWGX9kQhzoRJ74qw6xRS0sowuD-C-0nBWYHe8xqE8hgCTZ0C0nZMcbz5ba8rHg0oBbPfdpQQH8hztRjqiRaXj3HY/s400/basketball+girl.jpg)
She is a girl named Qian Hongyan (钱红艳), from Luliang County of China's southwest Yunnan Province. On October 21 of 2000, she, then 4 years old, was hit and run over by a rule-breaking truck laden with fertilizers when she was crossing a road. To save her life, doctors had to amputate both her legs and part of her lower torso. Since then she became a miserable half-body person, and lost the normal life that she should otherwise have had. Her family members once tried to use barrels and tires to replace her feet before her maternal grandfather found the basketball. He cut a circle from the ball and set her on it. When she walked, little Hongyan can only slowly move around after she had to use her hands holding a pair of specially designed wooden handle bars to lift up her body. Such a unique but very strenuous walking life didn't come to the end until January 2005 when docotors from China Rehabilitation Research Center in Beijing noticed Hongyan and vowed to have her up by fitting with a set of prosthetic legs. Eventually They made it in May 2005!
Story links to
Tom &
Crrc (in Chinese),
the Scotsman (via
Neatorama), More photos at
Photoshot &
BBC![Basketball Girl Qian Hongyan,钱红艳](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOsSE33o6hmRVjqqpFq8yflod9tSPopwrhuKs_DYp4QdHuuO2mb86sdyJJAa9vJWdvXWU6r1AIWarRIwjAH9eZlN7euOiZHCWLRpVjX2Ut4FNkAJNYUE7D63jYL8bx043RDbjVccdjCOc/s400/basketball+girl+1.jpg)