Noelle’s Story: Collegiate Athlete to Record-Setting Paralympian
Photo credit: Derrick Zellermann
While vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard in 2016, Noelle Lambert was in a moped accident that caused her to lose her left leg. She was attending the University of Massachusetts Lowell and playing Division 1 women’s lacrosse at the time — losing her leg could have ended her athletic career entirely.
But Noelle says that the accident was the best thing to ever happen to her.
“While I was in the hospital, the 2016 Rio Olympics were happening, and I saw something about the Paralympics,” she recalls. “I looked over at my parents and said, ‘Maybe I could become a Paralympian someday.’”
Since then, Noelle has competed in the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, the World Para Athletics Championship in Dubai, and the 43rd season of Survivor. She also founded the Born to Run Foundation, which provides specialized prosthetics to children and young adults. And most recently, she returned to compete in the 2024 Paris Paralympics for Track and Field.
Lifesaving emergency care after losing a limb
It was Noelle’s first time visiting Martha’s Vineyard in the summer of 2016. She decided to rent a moped and drive across the island with her friend and lacrosse teammate. While driving on a main road, Noelle lost control of the steering and hit a passing dump truck.
She recalls looking down, seeing that her leg was gone, and thinking that she’d never be able to play lacrosse again.
Thanks to the help of emergency responders and passersby, including a driver who used his t-shirt for a makeshift tourniquet to stop the bleeding, Noelle was transported to Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, where she was quickly stabilized. She was then airlifted to Boston Medical Center, where she had surgery to fully amputate her left leg. Her teammate, who also had injuries from the accident, underwent surgery at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and began recovery at home a couple days later.
The road to rehabilitation and recovery
About 5 days after surgery, Noelle was transferred to Spaulding Rehabilitation to begin her recovery. The journey wouldn’t be easy, but she quickly had a positive attitude — driven by her goal of getting back on the field.
“I never wanted to let my accident limit me from living the life that I wanted to live,” Noelle says. “I was very fortunate to have a lot of the Boston marathon survivors reach out, and a few came to visit me. After hearing their stories and everything they’d been through, I couldn’t feel sorry for myself. They were the first people to tell me I’d be able to play lacrosse again.”
Noelle stayed at Spaulding for a week, recovering and learning how to regain her mobility.
It can be extremely challenging for patients to adjust to life after losing a limb. After experiencing such a change in mobility, it takes a lot of time and training to be able to navigate day-to-day tasks on their own.
Amputee rehabilitation often involves psychological support as well as physical rehabilitation to help patients adjust. Nurses, physical therapists, and clinicians at Spaulding work with patients like Noelle to help them regain functional independence, manage their pain, and transition back to home.
“Having the opportunity to do my physical therapy for a week at Spaulding was huge for me,” Noelle says.
She adds that every person on her care team helped her acclimate to becoming an amputee, especially David Crandell, MD — a Mass General Brigham physiatrist who cares for patients at Spaulding. “Dr. Crandell has been a huge part of my journey, and I can honestly say I would not be where I am today if it wasn’t for him.”
“Sustaining a traumatic amputation definitely shapes an individual, but does not define them. After her injury, Noelle was still an elite athlete and true competitor,” says Dr. Crandell. “After she completed her rehabilitation, we all looked forward to seeing her back on the field with her UMass Lowell teammates.”
Forging a new athletic career in adaptive sports
Noelle was determined to return to lacrosse and get back to playing just like everyone else on her team.
During her rehabilitation, Noelle learned that adaptive sports equipment and specialty prosthetics —including those that allow you to run or swim — are often expensive and not covered by insurance. Heather Abbott, a Boston Marathon bombing survivor whom was also treated at Spaulding, and her foundation donated a waterproof prosthesis leg to Noelle. Later, she received a running blade prosthetic from the Challenged Athletes Foundation. The experience inspired her to later start her own foundation, called Born to Run, which donates running prosthetics to child amputees.
Once Noelle had a running blade prosthetic, she began working incredibly hard to learn how to run again and get herself back to playing lacrosse. The adjustment to running on a prosthetic was challenging and required a new level of balance, coordination, and focus. She experienced many falls and had painful blisters where the prosthesis met the remaining part of her leg, but she kept going.
Adjusting to a prosthetic leg on the lacrosse field
Before the accident, Noelle had a natural athletic ability that meant playing sports came a bit easier to her than it did for others. Now, she had to work harder than ever to fill in the gaps, putting in extra time outside of regular lacrosse practice to run and strength train.
In 2018, Noelle’s efforts paid off. She played in her first lacrosse game since the accident, where she not only became the first above the knee amputee to play lacrosse at the college level, but also managed to score a goal. It was an incredible moment that had all her teammates clearing the bench to run out and hug her.
Turning to a new sport after college: Making the U.S. Paralympics track and field team
After graduation, Noelle started to pursue track and field, learning about sprinting as she went. Incredibly, at her very first para-athletic track meet, Noelle defeated the existing female U.S. national champion in the 100-meter sprint and qualified for the U.S. Paralympics Track and Field team.
While preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, Noelle also competed in the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai. She set a new U.S. record and placed 4th in the world for the 100-meter sprint.
From Tokyo and Survivor to the Paris Paralympics – and beyond
