As a first lieutenant in the Army, she was traveling through Baghdad on April 13, 2004, when a bomb ripped through her Humvee and took part of her left leg with it.

Infection and surgery claimed another significant portion of her leg, leaving her with just a few inches of stump below her hip.

Doctors fitted Stockwell with a titanium prosthesis so she can walk around, but the leg comes off before she takes the starter's blocks and gets ready to swim.

"I definitely made a decision early on that I was going to put it behind me and move on and try to do something positive," Stockwell said. "I wouldn't have it any other way. I lost my leg. Of course I would like to have my leg, but I have no regrets. It's opened so many doors for me."

[Stockwell] felt absolute joy when she made a prosthetic leg for a ten-year-old girl, watched the child put the leg on, then get up and jump around. In the future, she is hoping to help wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan get their lives back through prosthetic care.