My Name is Amanda Boxtel

Mine is a universal story of hope and healing. After eighteen years of paralysis and a journey across continents, my pursuit is one of spirit-mind-body transformation. While my spinal cord injury took away my ability to walk, it did not take away my ability to dream.

My story is about my hopes, dreams, curiosity and indomitable will to pursue treatments around the world in order to gain a better quality of life while striving to walk again. Today I am turning my dreams into my reality one baby step at a time. Continue reading my biography →

Pursuit, the documentary (rough cut)

Please take a moment to view the rough cut of my documentary. I’m currently seeking funding to help complete this film. If you’re interested in helping, please email me here.

TEDx San Antonio: eLEGS Merging Technology with the Human Body

Thank you TEDx San Antonio for helping us secure a presentation at TED2011 in Long Beach, CA on March 3rd.  We’ll rock the world!  Whooooohoooo!!!!  Watch video of the TEDx 2010 presentation by clicking on this link:

TEDx San Antonio – eLEGS Merging Technology with the Human Body

About this talk: Blonde and athletic, Amanda Boxtel will tell you that she — like many other mobility-impaired people — never was meant to be sitting in a wheelchair after a skiing accident left her paralyzed 18 years ago. And so it was with childlike glee that Boxtel squealed: “I’m doing it!” as she walked across the stage of TEDxSanAntonio using eLEGS, an artificial exoskeleton designed for parapalegics by Berkeley Bionics. Continue reading →

Exoskeleton Wows TEDx Crowd in San Antonio

Link to the original San Antonio Express News article here.

As I sit in seat 3A with the newspaper on my lap, another passenger notifies me about the great article in the Metro section.  I am recognized.  I scan through the paper in my seat trying to remain incognito and read the headline in Sunday’s San Antonio Express-News—Exoskeleton Wows TEDx Crowd. Continue reading →

Transitions

I am living the dream that is on the precipice of molecular science and robotic technology combined.

As Geron presented the first clinical trial of human embryonic stem cells in the United States recently, we are making strides for mankind.  I was injected with human embryonic stem cells by Dr. Geeta Shroff in India with six treatments over a span of three years.  My embryonic stem cells continue to slowly gestate to bring renewed life with muscle power and sensation to my limbs and the bionic exoskeleton created by Berkeley Bionics helps me walk in a perfect gait so that maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to walk on my own two legs and feet in my lifetime. Continue reading →

eLEGS: Emotions

I have tried to sit at my keyboard on more than a few occasions to try to put words to my thoughts expressing my innermost feelings about walking in a bionic robot.  What I find is that words do not give justice to the profound emotion that wells from a pure spring in a distant chamber of my soul.  Imagine wanting something so badly for years and years—fluctuating between acceptance of what is and hope for something better?  Imagine if that one thing you longed for is to stand tall with your legs supporting your full body weight, and then taking your first step.  I’ve always dreamed for just one step.  But my higher self knows that one step would never be enough.  For eighteen years I have walked in my dreams.  I ran, jumped, danced, and leaped down long hallways in series of graceful grand jeté’s.  If I rolled in my wheelchair I’d somehow break free from my shackles, dive out and run away with full vigor like Forest Gump.  Are my walking dreams a form of my subconscious awareness that just might propel me into a quantum leap of reality one day?  My subconscious mind draws from my blueprint memories of walking and wants to believe it’s possible.