ISABELLE WEALL: At one point, I did have a less than 1% chance of survival.
ISABELLE WEALL: So, with how well I am doing now, it’s amazing that I took the 1%.
ISABELLE WEALL: I guess you could say I am a daredevil. Yeah!
ISABELLE WEALL: Yeah, I don’t like to say no.
ISABELLE WEALL: Like I don’t like giving up and I am all about, ‘What I can do.’
ISABELLE WEALL: I am a quadruple amputee but I am also a National Trampolining Champion.
ISABELLE WEALL: At the age of 7, I had to relearn how to walk, to write, you know, do all that again.
COMM: At just 7 years old, Isabelle contracted Meningitis, an infection affecting the protective
membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord.
ISABELLE WEALL: I didn’t have a clue what Meningitis was. And I remember when I got to the A&E department
at Derby hospital, I was lying on a bed and there were over 10 members of staff, all working on me. And then
that is, kind of, the point where I realised,
‘Hang on a minute. This is serious, like, something is happening here that shouldn’t be.’
ISABELLE WEALL: And then my heart stopped. I was in a coma for around a week. I had multiple organ failure.
COMM: In order to stop the infection from spreading, Isabelle had to have 4 of her limbs amputated.
ISABELLE WEALL: I think I was aware that my legs were going to be amputated. But I knew it had to happen
for me to survive.
CATHY LLOYD: Children deal with stuff very differently, and actually she was very matter of fact about it all.
ISABELLE WEALL: Over the years I have found a way to do everything that I could do before, and if not more.
ISABELLE WEALL: In year 7, I started Trampolining and my teachers started putting me forward for
competitions after I practised for a couple of months and that was when I started to win them.
CATHY LLOYD: I thought, ‘Crikey!’ Because she jumped quite high and she chucks herself about a bit. I think she
likes the, kind of, slightly scariness of trampolining, you know, it’s a bit the adrenaline rush of jumping.
ISABELLE WEALL: I like trampolining because I like the challenge of having to learn new moves with so many
different levels of difficulty.
CATHY LLOYD: If you ask her, ‘Are you scared of anything?’ The only thing she will say is, ‘Spiders!’
So she hasn’t really got any other fears.
JOSH WEALL: My sister doesn’t really stop, don’t let her anything get in her way and stuff.
ALEX WEALL: She is more like a daredevil than both of us, I would say.
COMM: Due to Isabelle’s success in Trampolining, she started a YouTube channel to show other people
how well she adapts to life with her amputation.
ISABELLE WEALL: So I started by posting videos of my Trampoline and then moved on to posting makeup
tutorials. Because there were always questions of people asking, ‘How do you do that?’
I am just showing people how I live my day-to-day life.
ISABELLE WEALL: At the moment I am happy with my, my pink legs. How do you put on your prosthetics?
So I put them on completely by myself. Maybe one day in the future I will show you but as of right now, I am not
really comfortable with showing how I do that.
ALEX WEALL: Yes! She, like, really inspires me when I, like, watch her doing, like, trampolining. I always try and
do the moves that she is doing but I can’t do half of them. So I am not very good.
JOSH WEALL: She does inspire a lot of other people as well.
ISABELLE WEALL: In the future, I definitely want to become National Champion again. And, also try and put
a somersault into my routine in trampolining, that would be really cool. And just continue with the YouTube
and everything I am doing at the moment.
CATHY LLOYD: I think sometimes I have to remind myself that she is only 14 and she has had some
amazing experiences. However, dark days have been, every cloud has a silver lining and a lot of these things,
we would never have the opportunity to do it if she hadn’t got ill. Life is for living. So it’s brilliant.
ISABELLE WEALL: I think a lot of people are surprised with how well I live my life independently. People don’t
realise that I can still do everything that I want to do, that I will go out by myself and that I will do whatever sports
that I want to do and I don’t let it stop me.