After Boston bombings, photographer Giles Duley shares insight on life after limb loss
LONDON When two bombs tore through the crowd gathered near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Giles Duley was 3,000 miles away in London, but he watched the images on television with a rare understanding of what many of the Boston victims would have to go through.
Duley, a freelance photographer, stepped on a buried IED in Afghanistan in 2011. He lost both legs -- one above the knee -- and his left arm near the shoulder. His right hand was crushed and had to be rebuilt with metal plates.
He says the hardest part wasn't accepting the changes to his own body, but learning to deal with a change in "people's perception of me."
It took Giles just a year to learn to walk on his new prosthetics, but he didn't wait nearly that long to pick his camera back up and learn how to use it, with just one hand.
His message to anyone who suddenly finds their life put "on pause," as he terms it, is inspiring in its simplicity: "If you focus on the things you can't do, you'll destroy yourself. Just remember everything you can do."
Click on the video player above to see Giles Duley's full comments on life after limb loss.