Dancer and Fitness Trainer Undergoes 34 Surgeries to Avoid Leg Amputation After Gruesome Motorcycle Accident

Amberly Lago felt like she had everything. She was living her California dream with a successful career as a fitness instructor alongside her husband and two daughters when a horrific accident completely changed her life.

In May 2010, the then 38-year-old was riding her motorcycle through Los Angeles when an SUV collided with her, sending her from her bike into the middle of the busy road.

“They came at me so fast and I was thrown about 30 feet,” she recalls. “When I finally stopped sliding across the asphalt, I looked down at my leg and it was just broken into pieces. I mean, there was blood everywhere. I was just thinking to myself, oh my goodness, this is like one of those horror movies where you see the blood squirt out. With every beat of my heart, blood just goes shooting out.”

Lago was quickly rushed to the hospital with a shattered leg and a severed femoral artery. She tells PEOPLE that while in the ambulance, her pain was excruciating.

“I’ve had two babies. I’ve passed kidney stones, and this is the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life,” says Lago, who now lives in Heath, Texas. “I remember squeezing the paramedic’s leg and wanting him to make some sort of eye contact with me to let me know, ‘You’re going to be fine.’ But he wouldn’t look at me. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, does he know I’m going to die?’”

“I really thought I was going to die,” she adds. “And then I kind of wished I would die because I was in so much pain.”

When Lago arrived at the emergency room of Northridge Hospital, her condition was so bad that doctors placed her in a medically induced coma for over a week.

After waking up, she was told the worst.

“They said, ‘I’m so sorry to tell you, but we need to amputate your leg. You have a 1% chance of saving it,’” she recalls. “I was like, wow, so you’re saying there’s a chance? Yeah, let’s save it.”

Against medical advice, Lago refused to have doctors amputate. Instead, after “a lot of pulling strings,” she was transferred to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to work with Dr. Donald Wiss, an orthopedic surgeon who was willing to try and save her leg. “He is like my hero,” she says.

From that point, Lago underwent 34 surgeries on her leg. The process was grueling, but in her mind, there was no other choice.

“They said I’ll be permanently disabled. I’ll never walk again, I’ll never work again. I was like, no, that’s just not the life I see for me. I will walk again,” she stresses.

It took a year for Lago to walk again. But with each additional surgery, she felt like she was restarting her recovery. “I would be walking and then I’d have another surgery and be back in a wheelchair, then back on crutches, then I’d walk again just to have to start over,” she says.

Lago was in physical therapy five days a week. She jokes that she was at the rehabilitation center so much that the owner ended up giving her a key to the building.

In addition to the countless surgeries, Lago was also diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome four months after the accident.

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a rare neurological condition that causes constant or intermittent pain in the extremities, typically developing after an injury or surgery, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Symptoms include swelling, a burning sensation, throbbing pain, extreme sensitivity to touch, decreased ability to move the affected area, muscle spasms, weakness and more.

The condition — often referred to as “suicide disease” — can make even routine procedures, like taking a blood pressure reading, excruciating. There is no cure, and effective treatments are limited.

“Every day I feel like I have a million rubber bands wrapped around my foot and ankle and fire ants stinging me,” Lago explains. “That has been the hardest thing.”

“I was like, nope. This cannot be my life. I was in denial for a long time about that,” she continues. “I didn’t want to believe that I was diagnosed with something like this, and it is supposedly incurable.”

Over the years, Lago has tried countless therapies to relieve some of her pain, even recently traveling to Costa Rica for alternative treatments. But nothing has helped.

“I had spinal blocks, I had a spinal stimulator, I had ketamine infusion, opioids. I’ve tried every kind of treatment,” she shares. “At one point, I was on 38 homeopathic pills and 11 different prescription medications at one time just to try to get through the day.”

The condition paired with the ups and downs of her recovery ultimately took a toll on her mental health. Not only was she struggling through her chronic pain, but it was also difficult to come to terms with her new appearance.

“I was a professional dancer and fitness trainer… and now look at me. I’m deformed. I’m scarred from the hip down,” she says. “I put so much into looking at these scars and the imperfections. I hated myself, I really hated myself.”

That shame and self-hatred ultimately led to alcohol abuse as a way to “numb” her pain.

“I was about ready to give up. I ended up in a place where I really didn’t want to wake up. I just started isolating and drinking more,” she explains. “It’d be this vicious cycle of just being in pain and promising myself I’m not going to drink, but the pain would be so severe that I just needed relief. I was using alcohol as medicine.”

It wasn’t until a single moment in 2016 with her surgeon, Dr. Wiss, that her perspective finally shifted.

“He did something that changed my life. He put my leg in his lap, and he looked at it like it was a miracle. It was his masterpiece,” she recalls. “And I started to think, oh my gosh, if he can look at my leg that way, then maybe I can learn to look at it that way too and love it again.”

“But these are the battles I had to overcome,” she says. “It took a lot to look down at my scars like wow, these aren’t disgusting and ugly.”

Lago — who has been sober since that turning point in 2016 — explains that over the years, she simply decided to keep a positive mindset. She had the choice to either look at her leg and feel sorry for herself or get back on her feet.

“So that’s what I choose to do,” she boasts. “Pain has been my greatest teacher. I think that pain pushes you until your purpose pulls you.”

“I just try to do my best to be mentally, spiritually, physically as strong as I can and really work on my mindset to get through the hard days,” she adds.

Fifteen years after her accident, Lago, now 53, sees herself as having very few limitations in life.

Despite her chronic pain, she’s walking on her own, active in the gym, and loves embarrassing her daughters with how much she dances. She also regularly attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and values the supportive community she’s built since her accident. “It’s the connection with other people that gets me through,” she notes.

Lago’s now preparing for another leg surgery on June 2 — a reminder that although she’s in a better place, her recovery is always ongoing.

“This is something that I live with every single day,” she adds.

As an author, motivational speaker, coach and podcast host, Lago has since dedicated herself to encouraging others to have resilience, which she says has been the biggest factor in her journey. Earlier this year, she released her latest book, Joy Through The Journey, a guide to helping people reclaim their joy through the ups and downs of life.

Lago admits to PEOPLE that looking back and reflecting isn’t something she tends to do, but she still recognizes how far she’s come.

“I survived this,” she says. “I just kind of look at, well, what are the possibilities ahead?”