this is a special edition of "nightline." pushing the limits. >> tonight, the astounding power of the human spirit. model lindsay s. had it all. then lost everything. >> i knew that there was something wrong with my hands and my feet. >> suddenly a quadruple amputee who couldn't even brush her own hair. from that risky surgery to the miracle of those new hands. performing their own magic in a cross fit competition. tracing every painful step in this stunning personal odyssey of guts, grace, and glory. >> this special edition of "nightline," "pushing the limits" will be right back.

this is a special edition of "nightline." "pushing the limits." >> good evening. thanks for joining us. it's been said the human spirit is the strongest force there is. tonight it's on full display. she had it all. beauty, dreams, a bright future. all suddenly changed in a terrible turn of luck. then the miraculous surgery that would redefine her, even giving her a new dream. now abc's john donvan takes another look at one remarkable woman pushing the limits. >> lindsay s., a woman in her

early 30s, a newbie to cross fit. a competitive sport that tests endurance and strength. with the notable thing being in cross fit, teams with space for athletes that look like this, and like this, also include athletes who have experienced severe injuries and even lost limbs. like lindsay. but here's the thing about her that you might not be able to see. it's not just her legs that are so to speak borrowed. what's not obvious to the naked eye is that her hands too are a gift from someone else. a gift she had not yet received when we first met her six years ago. when this and this were part of her reality. >> the most common questions i get are, how do you type? how do you text so fast? just like chicken pecking. >> reporter: it was only when she was in her mid-20s lindsay lost both her legs and both her arms. before that, growing up, she was

always one of the pretty girls. she even did some modeling. as a 24-year-old, fresh out of virginia commonwealth university, lindsay had her eyes on a career producing fashion shows. you were on your way. >> yes, i would say that was my dreams, as far as being an excellent student and well respected, were definitely coming true. >> reporter: but then she got sick. a blockage in her small intestine from crohn's disease. surgery followed and something went wrong, infection took over and shut down her entire body. to save her life doctors had to put her in a medically induced coma. when she came out of it, a month later, still in a haze -- >> i knew that there was something wrong with my hands and my feet. i would look down and i would see black. almost like a body that had depom coesd decomposed. >> reporter: the infection

turned her extremities into dead tissue. >> there was a period of time where they didn't tell me they had to amputate, but somebody from the staff said, honey, you know what they're going to do to your hands, right? that was what i knew. >> reporter: overnight she found herself profoundly disabled. >> you don't have your hands now. >> or my feet. >> or your feet. what are the challenges? >> the challenges are independence, lack of control. >> reporter: getting prosthetic legs on always required help from her mom judith, who basically had moved back into her daughter's life, back to the kind of care that would have been their connection 20 years earlier. lindsay had discovered a lot of things about herself that she did better emotionally by not focusing on the life that was gone, that she hates needing so much help. >> i can't wait to brush my own hair. >> i'm such an independent person. then again i'm grateful i have a mother like that. what would i do? >> i want her to be able to

touch me just the way that i touch her. >> reporter: she also learned that while she could adjust to the prosthetic legs, the prosthetic arms were just too heavy. >> these prosthetics are [ bleep ]. i can't do anything with them. i can't do anything behind the head. they're heavy. they're made for men. they are claws. they're not feminine whatsoever. >> reporter: besides, she realized, so much of our independence, our identity even, is in our hands. >> i've accepted the fact that my feet are gone. that's acceptable to me. my hands -- is not. it's still not. in my dreams i always have my hands. >> reporter: then she learned that doctors had just begun to have success transplanting hands. >> hello, lindsay. >> hi. >> good to see you. >> reporter: december 2009, lindsay had begun meeting with dr. scott levin, a transplant specialist willing to try the rare procedure of giving lindsay new hands, real ones, from a

donor. >> would i be able to go behind? >> sure, yeah. hopefully you'll be doing your hair. >> i wanted to try to get this other knee up -- >> reporter: lindsay worked out diligently, all part of the commitment she made to qualify for the transplant. >> have you fallen? >> yes. i fall. you have to fall, you have to go through pain in order to achieve other things. >> reporter: she is just so tough in these moments, working her body like this. but back in her apartment, she talks about her body again and what she sees now in a different way. >> people used to turn and look at me when i walked down the street because of how beautiful i was. now they look at me because i'm in a wheelchair, i have no hands and feet. >> i'm a little micromanaging. >> it's okay. >> reporter: what that has told her? >> what does it matter what my hair looks like? what does it matter what i'm wearing so much? >> reporter: but hands, they matter. not just as much as before. more. >> i try to defy what everybody else says is impossible.

they said i wasn't going to live. i lived. they said i wasn't going to walk. i'm going to walk. they said i won't have my hands. i'm going to have my hands. >> reporter: four months later, april 2011, i pay a visit on dr. scott levin at university of pennsylvania who talked about how complex the surgery lindsey had signed on for. >> you have normal sensation here. >> the hookup of the new hand is relying on her nerves growing into the new muscles from the donor. the nerves have to grow into those muscles, which takes months, could take a year. >> she may or may not get truly functioning hands back? >> we tell patients, we can fail you. the operation can fail. >> what's failure? >> the part doesn't survive and we have to reamputate the transplant. that's failure. >> reporter: the preferred donor would be female with hands of the right size and skin color that matched. part of the wait is for those body parts to become available.

that was, of everything we discussed, the part lindsay found most difficult, about this unnamed donor that everyone was waiting for. >> i hate thinking about that. >> why? >> because -- i just don't -- somebody out there right now is alive. >> you hate thinking about it because it means that person would have to die. >> uh-huh. i think, though, whoever the hands will be, will be carried out with purpose. they're not just going to be used to look pretty. >> reporter: september 2011. >> my spirits are pretty good. we're waiting for this a long time. >> reporter: after four years without hands and feet, a month on the waiting list, it has happened. someone, somewhere, has died. and her hands are being delivered to dr. levin who has also now phoned lindsay, telling her to get from richmond to philadelphia immediately. >> the phone rang.

what did he say? >> there's a donor ready for you. and i think my mom and i both jaws dropped. >> reporter: speed critical. the surgery had to start within hours. lindsay and her mom also took a moment to pause. >> my first thing that we did was we prayed for the family. who lost their young daughter. >> reporter: and then it begins. >> bye, love you! when we come back, lindsay's long journey from hospital bed to cross fit and her attempt to lift that massive barbell in competition. i was a smoker. hands down, it was, that's who i was. after one week of chantix, i knew i could quit. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. chantix definitely helped reduce my urge to smoke. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix.

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we're inside the cutting-edge operation to give lindsay ess two new hands. it is september 2011. >> separate skin, separate muscle biopsy at this point in time -- >> reporter: two separate teams working at once. one dedicated to the left hand, the other working on the right. after 11 1/2 hours, the surgery comes to an end. >> how are you feeling? >> reporter: hours later lindsay wakes up with someone else's hands, now hers. >> have you looked yet? no? okay. >> i've only looked, peeked down at one. >> they feel like normal fingers. normal hands. >> reporter: the initial signs are good. >> this is more than we could ever hope for. her blood pressure's good. all the parameters are good related to how the blood flow is in and out of her new arms. this is, if you will, a picture-perfect course so far.

>> reporter: ahead for lindsay were months of therapy. none of it easy. >> one, two, three, four -- >> it's easier with her helping me. >> you're doing well. each repetition should get easier, you're getting looser. >> how many is this one? >> this is only number two. >> reporter: as lindsay becomes acquainted with her new hands -- >> tell me when you first actually saw them. that they were yours. >> actually, the first couple of days, i refused to look at them. >> how come? >> kind of like one of those scary movies. you know, like one of those i'm too scared to look. it's reality. >> reporter: it's not yet perfect reality. to prevent rejection the surgeon has had to leave pouches of excessive fat ask skin on her normally toned and thin arms. her new hands and arms look like they did in fact belong to someone else. >> the skin color is never going to be the same. the lower arms to your upper

arms. >> it's hard to ask questions like that, because i'm just so grateful to have them, for them to not match is to me -- >> beside the point? >> yeah. >> reporter: january 2012. four months after surgery, lindsay's doctors are amazed by the pace of her recovery. they did not expect to see fine motor control for at least another 12 to 18 months. but -- >> to see this at this early stage is very encouraging. >> reporter: her muscles are reacting and she can pick up lightweight objects. finally she goes home with her prognosis getting better and better all the time. >> oh my god, look at your extension, incredible. >> reporter: nine months after surgery -- >> straighten these out if you can. hold them out. squeeze. >> reporter: lindsay could sense hot and cold. a tingling sensation that bothers her. nevertheless indicates that nerves are growing back. the therapy continues. the dark pigment in her hands is

fading away. excess skin and fat removed. all ahead of schedule. >> if you let my pinky go too, i can move these two and at the same time -- >> i see. >> reporter: a year and a half after the surgery, there was this one small thing lindsay once told us that she aspired to do herself. >> i can't wait to brush my own hair. >> reporter: here it is. >> these are your hands now. they feel like your hands to you? >> i feel like they're a gift. and they're always going to be a gift. i mean -- you can say that they're mine. and they are mine. but -- they're still a gift. >> that's much better. >> yes, much better. >> reporter: we continued paying visits to lindsay, watching her get back the thing she wanted most, her independence.

a few months ago when we visited it was clear she is making the most of her new hands. how have you been? >> very good. very, very good. >> how are your hands? >> hands are great. still learning a lot with them. you know, something different every day. >> it seems like an obvious question. you do feel a great deal more independence than you did? >> yes. >> like a completely different -- >> completely different. i mean, i'm -- it's 100% different. 100% different, yeah. i mean, i drive. i live on my own. i have a dog. a house. to take care of cleaning, dishes, cooking -- >> it's all you, you're doing it yourself? >> i would like it to be all me. but some things are -- like i can't put my hair up. button blouses or jeans. tie shoes. if i could do changing of shoes, or i want my hair a specific way, then obviously my mom helps me, but -- and i'm not doing too

well at cooking yet. >> reporter: and now she has found cross fit. which she loves. you're a pretty competitive person. >> yeah. yeah, to a fault. >> and you have this thing for taking on hard challenges. >> yeah. >> reporter: talk about hard. it has been hours and hours of workout s and specialized training. >> if you don't take chances in life, big chances and big things aren't going to happen. it's been working so far for me. i'm not going to stop now. >> reporter: which brings us now back to the moment of the lift. this was at a competition in arizona where lindsay worked through the whole gauntlet of physical challenges as a member of her team which is called the some assembly required team. her goal when it came to the dead lift was to pull 73 pounds with one arm. >> easy to imagine. lifting a barbell from the ground with arms that are not yours, that are attached by rods, that are sewn on by

stitches. >> reporter: even as she prepared for this, she was struck by a funny thought. >> oh, i love that scene. >> what scene? >> he's going for a clean jerk of over 1,500 power plants -- >> reporter: from a "saturday night live" lots of years back. >> he's about to dead lift. he's getting ready to do it and his arms rip off. blood everywhere. he's talking while spraying blood, hilarious. every time i lift, i think about that. they're never going to do that, but it's funny to me. to think about it. >> reporter: there is no risk of that happening here. these hands are totally attached to you, they're not going to give. >> yeah. never say never, but -- i have faith that they won't. >> reporter: so lindsay went out onto the competition floor. an event honoring wounded veterans. athletes competing against one another regardless of disability.

look at how her hands served her. rowing. lifting. one exercise after the other. but at the dead lift, with the weight of 55 pounds, the clock defeated her. she could not get it done in time. and she left without the victory she wanted. >> the wheelchair. and the first one. >> reporter: well, not exactly. just because she could, lindsay stayed late and decided to try to lift again. a weight more than she had ever lifted before. loaded up, she told her spotter, and then she pulled. and it rose. 85 pounds with one hand. and a personal record. >> i just didn't want to leave until i did that. >> and you did? >> and i did. >> reporter: because that's lindsay ess, taking her world in hand and taking it to the max. for "nightline," i'm john donvan in richmond, virginia.

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