‘Now I feel like a normal kid – but just with a different leg...’
BRAVE Alys Davies was back on the dance floor just 10 weeks after losing her leg in a freak lawnmower accident. The eight-year-old suffered horrific injures in the incident at her family home and had to have an amputation below the knee.
The schoolgirl, who had been dancing since she was three, was fitted with a prosthetic leg and from the start she was determined to get back to living her life like a “normal kid but just with a different leg”.
Just two weeks after the operation she was back in the dance studio and was dancing weeks later.
Alys was playing in the garden at home in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, with her sister Lauren when she suffered the injury from her father’s ride-on lawnmower which stripped the skin from her lower leg.
She was rushed to hospital,. where doctors carried out the amputation and Alys was fitted with a new leg at the Artificial Limb and Appliance Centre at Morriston, Swansea. Keen Strictly fan Alys shocked medics with her amazing recovery.
Just two weeks after the operation, the determined schoolgirl was back in the dance studio. Alys started dancing when she was three years old. She does everything from disco to folk to street dancing – and at the beginning of last year she was chosen to represent Wales in a dance exhibition in the US before the garden accident.
Dad Dylan was driving the lawnmower when the accident happened – something he’ll never forget.
He said: “It is a moment that will stay with me forever. It’ll probably stay with her forever as well. But you can’t live in that moment and as unfortunate and as horrendous as it was, we’ve got to move forward.”
Alys’ mum Nia said: “How do you tell an eight-year-old who a fortnight previously was performing on the stage? How do you break that to her without shattering her dreams?
“My initial thought was, we’ve still got Alys – she’s still with us . ... I just thought ‘this has to be the making of her, not the breaking of her’.
“As soon as she had a wheelchair she didn’t want anybody to help her, she wanted to independently wheel it. As soon as we came out of hospital, she wanted to go straight back to dancing. She’s been the tower of strength through all of this.
“We met the whole team and everyone made us feel at ease – they have been amazing. The team has been giving her challenges and charting her progress, and giving her goals to aim for. She even said she enjoyed her time in hospital because everyone was so friendly”.
Speaking about the accident, Alys said: “I was filming my sister and then the lawnmower came and I stepped back and the lawnmower grabbed my leg and then it peeled my skin. I had a shock and I didn’t think I’d be able to do things I used to do before the accident.”
“At the start I felt totally different because Lauren was helping me but as time went on, I was getting better and I felt more like the normal kids. Now I feel like a normal kid but just with a different leg.”
Advanced prosthetist Paul Drayton said: “Alys attended Swansea Artificial Limb and Appliance Service in the weeks following her the accident, which is where I became involved in her care. We began her early rehabilitation program which involved physiotherapy with the physios and her prosthetist, and she continued to have weekly physiotherapy input to encourage improvement of the knee and hip and also maintaining strength globally By mid-august Alys was ready for her first prosthesis, which she took to exceptionally quickly. She was soon using it in school as well as her dance class. Getting back to dancing was really important for Alys so we needed to learn some of her dance moves to help her to achieve her goals; she got me doing the Macarena at the centre. Alys has been coping remarkably well. She’s back to doing the things she loves which is great to see.”
Alys went on to be fitted with a specialist sports blade to allow her to take part in sporting activities more easily.
It was made available thanks to the Welsh Health Specialist Services Committee, NHS Wales and Welsh Government funding. Paul said: “At Swansea ALAS we have embraced this policy and have provided a range of different sports prostheses to help children and young people to participate in sports and hobbies that they previously were unable to participate in. People in Alys’ situation who are more active tend to get more out of having a blade, and it helps keep them fit and healthy. She is still growing so over time she will have to have different blades fitted.”
Alys’s story is featured in a documentary, Drych: Stori Alys, which is available on S4C’S digital platforms.