“It’s strange, because I don’t really see that I’m that inspiring,” Turia told 60 Minutes last night. “I’m just living my life to the fullest, which is what everyone should do.”
In 2011, Turia Pitt was competing in an ultramarathon across the Kimberley when bushfire swept through. She suffered terrible burns to her face, hands, and most of her body.
She has spent the past four years trying to recover. In the process, she has endured more than 100 operations and, she said, “864 hospital meals, which is 864 too many.”
“Now I stand before all of you a new – and improved – woman,” she said.
She used to think that people only admired her good looks, and not her grit, and her intelligence.
“We’re all so much more than our bodies,” she said.
Turia is currently traveling overseas, trying to raise awareness for burns victims in other, less privileged countries. She has seen surgeons at work in Laos, restoring sight to baby whose face was burnt by boiling water, and mobility to a man whose legs had become fused, for lack of treatment.
She has also been back to the Kimberley, to meet those who saved her life: the helicopter pilot, nurses, and paramedics.
Rather than go to the gorge where she found herself trapped by fire, she took part in a 20 kilometre swim in the Argyle River, as part of a team event.
“I’d way rather do something that’s fun, rather than going back to a negative moment in my memory,” she said.
“It’s like, if you have a nightmare, do you want to have that nightmare again? I’ve already got closure. I’ve moved on.”
Turia has recently settled a legal dispute with race organisers, although reports that she received $10 million are said to be wrong.
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