Post date: May 10, 2013 4:56:34 PM
A survivor of the Boston marathon bombing, Heather Abbott credits a positive attitude as a vital element in her recovery from the loss of her lower leg.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES (MAY 10, 2013) (NEW ENGLAND CABLE NEWS) - A victim of the bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Heather Abbott now walks on crutches as she awaits a custom prosthetic leg, which will allow her to walk again.
The 38-year-old from Newport, Rhode Island says a positive attitude has been vital to her recovery."If someone told me this was going to happen to me, I am sure I wouldn't have expected that I would have a strong outlook or a positive outlook, because it's such a terrible thing that happened. But as soon as it did, I decided that there's nothing I can do about it, that it's the situation I've been dealt, and the best way to overcome it is to focus on recovery," Abbott said during a news conference at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston on Friday (May 10).
Abbott was hurled into the entryway of a restaurant when twin blasts exploded on April 15. The bombing killed three people and injured 264 others.
For days, doctors, who rushed Abbott to an operating room less than an hour after the blasts, had hoped to save her badly mangled left foot.
But it soon became clear that Abbott would have a better chance of resuming her normal life filled with aerobics classes if she went into surgery again. So exactly one week after the Boston bombing and as a moment of silence was observed for its victims, doctors opted for a below-the-knee amputation.
Recovering from the surgeries has taken weeks, but Abbott says she is pleased with her steady progress.
"I look at those different steps, you know, of having to be wheeled around to wheeling myself around to then walking on crutches all the time, it definitely shows how I've progressed and when I think about that I'm very, you know, very happy with that," she said.
The pressure-cooker bombs, which were left on the ground near the finish line of the race, caused severe lower body injuries in victims.
Abbott, who works in human resources at Raytheon Corp, said she has tried to shut out the news and focus only on her own road to recovery.
With a prosthesis she will get in a few weeks, she is expected to resume a full and athletic life.