Former firefighter Gina Kothe’s right foot was crushed in an aerial-ladder accident during a 2010 blaze in Kingston, New York.
After months of false hope and a failed surgery, doctors decided her foot would have to be amputated. She fell into depression. “I had a slight addiction to painkillers,” she recalled. “I would shower every three or four days, and wear the same barbecue-stained T-shirt for two or three days in a row.”
