A nine-year-old schoolgirl who had to have both legs amputated as a baby is set to ‘make history’ when she becomes the first double amputee child to walk the runway at New York Fashion Week.
Daisy-Mae Demetre, nine, from Birmingham, was born with fibular hemimelia, where part or all of the fibular bones in the leg are missing, and underwent the amputation of both legs when she was just 18-months-old.
She has been chosen to appear for couture brand Lulu et Gigi after its founder spotted her modelling while in London.
Her father Alex, 36, said his daughter was determined to lead the way for other amputees, telling the BBC: ‘Daisy is going to be making a little bit of history.’
The schoolgirl, who wears prosthetic legs, began modelling in February 2018, when she was invited to London Fashion Week to model River Island’s children’s range.
Daisy-May was born with fibular hemimelia, a rare defect that occurs in only one in 40,000 births where all or part of the fibula – the calf bone – is missing.
It is even rarer for it to affect both legs, as it did with Daisy-May. She had no fibula in her left leg, and only a small one in her right.
The condition was identified while she was still in the womb, leaving mother Claire Reid, 36, and her father Alex stunned.
Aged 18 months, Daisy-May went under the knife at Birmingham Children’s Hospital for an eight-hour operation to amputate her legs.
She now has two sets of prosthetic legs – a pair of ‘activity blades’ similar to those worn by Paralympians and another more ‘basic’ pair for school.
And not only has Daisy-May learnt to walk, run and ride a bicycle with all the confidence of other children her age, she has also become a keen gymnast.
For the past eighteen months, modelling has also been a passion.
Father Alex revealed: ‘[Daisy is] going to be making a little bit of history.’
He explained that this was something he wanted child amputees do do ‘all the time’, adding: ‘It doesn’t stop you; it definitely doesn’t stop Daisy. She is fitter than most grown men I know.
‘But the modelling doesn’t define Daisy, it is just a part of what does… she just does Daisy, it is the way she goes about life with a smile on her face.’
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Read the original story in the Daily Mail.
