The Amputee Coalition is pleased to announce the 2023 National Conference will be held at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld®, August 2 -5, 2023. This year’s conference theme, “Elevate Together Towards Tomorrow,” will highlight ways to expand our community in every way. The Amputee Coalition celebrates its diverse community and aims to fully engage all people living with limb loss and limb difference to build a collective voice on critical issues impacting the community and to elevate the organization’s mission. Conference offerings will have a special focus on health equity, diversity, equity and inclusion, and youth engagement.
As the premier event for the limb loss and limb difference community, the Amputee Coalition’s national conference is the only patient- and consumer-focused event that creates the opportunity for our community members to interact with a breadth of solutions on the market. During our conference, attendees can engage with vendors, touch and feel the latest prosthesis on the market, and leverage that experience to make informed decisions about their care and needed support. National Conference is also the Amputee Coalition’s largest activity designed to “reach” the community en masse based on our founding principles, including the importance of peer support and elevating expertise only gained through lived experience. The event spotlights education and engagement across all four of the organization’s program areas: education, support, prevention, and advocacy.
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*Renewal Rate Applicable to 2022 Exhibitors
Amy Purdy Will Keynote the Amputee Coalition 2023 National Conference in Orlando, FL.
At 19, after experiencing progressively worsening flu-like symptoms after a long day at work, Amy was rushed to the hospital in a state of septic shock. En route, she experienced respiratory and multiple organ failure, which caused her to lose circulation to her extremities. Admitted to the hospital, she was given less than a 2% chance of survival, put on life support, and placed into a medically induced coma. After multiple blood transfusions and the removal of her ruptured spleen, doctors diagnosed Amy with meningococcal meningitis, a rare and often deadly bacterial blood infection. Due to septic shock, doctors had to amputate her legs below the knee. After going through this life-altering experience, Amy challenged herself to move on with her life and attain goals that even those who have both legs would struggle to achieve. Just three months after her kidney transplant, she entered the USASA National Snowboarding Championship where she won medals in three different events. Today, she is one of the pioneers of the U.S. Paralympic Snowboarding Team and a three-time Paralympic medalist.
Amy’s creativity, positive outlook, and her never-give-up attitude have opened doors to countless other opportunities including being featured in a Madonna music video, being the lead actress in an award-winning independent film, competing with her husband on the iconic TV show “The Amazing Race”, and very nearly winning season 18 of “Dancing with the Stars” with her partner Derek Hough. Over the years, Amy has evolved into a powerful, motivational keynote speaker who has literally been seen by millions of people and invited to speak to audiences around the world. She has toured the country sharing her remarkable story alongside Oprah Winfrey, as part of Oprah’s The Life You Want Tour. Her autobiography, On My Own Two Feet, quickly became a New York Times Best Seller, It is now published around the world in 10 languages. Amy and her husband founded Adaptive Action Sports, which trains athletes with disabilities in action sports. Their organization is top in the U.S. for developing Paralympic snowboarders.
Paralympic Gold Medalist Mike Schultz Added to National Conference Roster
Mike Schultz, a Paralympic gold medal-winning snowboarder, X Games champion, and entrepreneur, will share his inspiring story as a keynote speaker at the Amputee Coalition’s 2023 National Conference. Schultz won a gold medal at the 2018 Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. He added a silver medal at those games and another in 2022 in Beijing. He claimed a world championship in Finland in 2019 and has won multiple World Cup gold medals. Schultz, 41, also founded BioDapt, a prosthetics business. He engineered a prosthetic knee to help him return to competition, and he won his first X Games silver medal in the adaptive motocross not long after. Schultz’s company provides prosthetic equipment to many top para athletes. “I’m a competitor and a problem-solver,” Schultz said. “My goal is to challenge myself both mentally and physically on and off the race course. I want to make a positive influence on the people around me by being a good person, strong person, and by sharing my experience with others to help them achieve their goals.”
