China's Inspirational 'Basketball Girl' Gets New Legs
China's Inspirational 'Basketball Girl' Gets New Legs This is Qian Hongyan, an 18-year-old girl who lives in China. She may seem like your average teenager, but she has a pretty unique backstory. Qian lost both her legs in a car accident in 2000 when she was just four years old. Growing up in rural Luliang county, southwestern China's Yunnan province, her family had to improvise. These pictures, taken in 2005 when Qian was just ten, show how. Qian learned to walk on her hands, using a basketball cut in half to steady herself. According to Xinhua news agency, she was dubbed "basketball girl" by locals. In 2005, after attention in the Chinese press, Qian traveled to Beijing to receive free artificial limbs at the China Rehabilitation Research Center, a center that has been providing help to the disabled in China for over 20 years. This photo, from 2007, shows her receiving a larger set of limbs after she had grown. Xinhua reports that Qian was born to an impover...