Already back on the dance floor, beautiful ballroom teacher maimed in Boston bombings appears on Dancing With The Stars

• Adrianne Haslet, 32, made a guest appearance on last night's DWTS
  
• She had her lower left leg amputated after being hit by the second bomb
  
• Competition to follow her progress as she begins rehab in Boston hospital
  

By Helen Lawson and Sara Smyth

PUBLISHED: 05:03 EST, 1 May 2013 | UPDATED: 08:12 EST, 1 May 2013

A professional dancer who had part of her leg amputated after being injured in the Boston bombings  vowed to do 'whatever it takes' to dance again in an appearance on Dancing With The Stars last night.

Adrianne Haslet, 32, is recovering from the attack in a Boston hospital and appeared in a three-minute segment on the primetime dance competition with an update on her progress.

She said: 'It's the longest I've gone without dancing for as long as I remembered.

'I was in a very dark place.'

During a montage, viewers saw Haslet taking steps down a hospital corridor with the help of a frame, doing ballet stretches on the floor of a studio, and sitting in her wheelchair in a dance hold with a male partner.

Scroll down for video

Boston bombing survivor Adrianne Haslet appeared in a three-minute segment on Dancing With The Stars last night, vowing to dance again

Dancing With The Stars will follow Haslet's progress as she undergoes rehabilitation for the loss of her leg

Haslet said the fortnight since the blast was the longest she had gone without dancing in memory

Haslet said she is looking forward to being fitted for a prosthetic lower leg

 

Boston bombing victim: I WILL dance again

Watch more at Dancing With The Stars...

But the ballroom dancer said: 'I absolutely will dance again' and plans to accept the show's offer of a place in the competition once she is used to life with a prostethic lower limb.

'When I heard from Dancing With the Stars I was incredibly nervous, excited, happy,' she said.

'I just couldn’t believe it.'

In the segment, Haslet recalled the day of the bombing.

 

More...

• Rock on, Rockettes! Hundreds of ladies do battle for starring spot in Christmas stage spectacular
• Raising a salute to May Day! Morris dancers herald the spring festival as forecasters predict temperatures will rise to 19C in time for Bank Holiday weekend

'It was a beautiful Boston day,' she said.

'All of a sudden the bomb went off maybe four feet from where we were standing.

'We landed on the ground and I thought I think I'm going to be okay, I'm not in any pain and then I tried to move my leg and I couldn't.

Haslet teaches ballroom dancing at the Arthur Murray studio in Boston

Haslet was seen using a walking frame in a hospital corridor during a montage of her rehabilitation

Haslet had her leg amputated five inches below the knee after being hit by the second blast at the marathon

The ballroom dancer and instructor is undergoing intensive physiotherapy to help her recover

'I remember the smell and I remember the smoke thinking I was going to die.'

Her mother said: 'Adrianne came out of surgery and I had to tell her her foot was no longer there, knowing that it would be very painful for her because of dance.'

DWTS host Tom Bergeron said: 'Adrianne Haslet is the ballroom dancer whose amazingly positive outlook is a testament to the power of the human spirit.'

Mrs Haslet messaged a friend saying 'OHMUGOD!!!!!!!!! I loooove Derek!!!!!!' when she learned that DWTS favourite Derek Hough wants to dance with her.

Hough told the Boston Herald: 'It’s hard for anyone to really quite understand what she must be going through and what she’s going to go through with rehab and getting her balance back.'

Haslet hopes to receive her prosthetic within two months

Haslet was watching the end of the marathon with her husband, an Air Force captain, when they were both injured by the second bomb

Haslet was seen surrounded by friends and family in the three-minute segment

Haslet's hospital room, with flowers from wellwishers, was also filled with friends and family

'But if she has the determination and she has the passion — and it sounds like she does — she’s going to run that marathon and she’s going to be dancing again. It’s not going to slow her down.'

Adrianne Haslet has become the face of a host of amputees who are struggling to recover from the Boston bombings.

Beth Roche wakes up knowing she can’t feel sorry for herself, that she has to focus on rehabbing her ravaged left leg.

Haslet takes her first tentative steps towards recovery. The professional ballroom dancer is said to be a fan of DWTS and counts Derek Hough as her favourite professional performer

But despite life-changing injuries, both women have vowed that the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and left them among the ranks of more than 260 injured will not define their lives.

Parts of them may be broken, but both patients at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital said in separate interviews last week that their spirits are intact and their thoughts are positive.

'I absolutely want to dance again and I also want to run the marathon next year,' said Haslet.

'I will crawl across the finish line, literally crawl, if it means I finish it.'

Roche, a 59-year-old medical office manager from Highland, Ind., who ran Chicago’s marathon last year, said she’s concentrating on more than just walking again.

'I want to do another marathon by the time I’m 65,' she said.

Roche said the first bomb at the marathon peeled her leg open 'like a sardine can.'

It happened right after she saw her daughter, Rebecca Roche, a 33-year-old Boston pharmacist, cross the race’s finish line.

The mother has had one surgery in which doctors implanted pins and plates in her leg, and has another surgery in her future.

The first blast left bones poking out of her leg, and made her unable to run for cover.

She said a first responder tried to shield her as the second bomb exploded.

Roche ended up at Tufts Medical Center, and begged staffers before she went into surgery to find her family and let them know she was alive.

The blast from the second explosion knocked Haslet off her feet from about four feet away.

Boston bombing victim vows to dance again after losing foot

Adrianne Haslet has become a symbol of bravery int he aftermath of the Boston bombings

Adrianne Haslet exercises her bandaged leg as part of her rehab programme

The Boston woman, an Arthur Murray Dance Studio employee, thought she was going to die when she looked down and saw how her body had been mutilated.

She had one surgery to amputate her left foot, and another in which doctors amputated more of the same leg below her knee.

In the hours before terror struck Boylston Street, Haslet was basking in the joy of having her husband home again.

Two weeks earlier, the Air Force captain had returned from a four-month deployment in Afghanistan.

Adrianne Haslet pictured with husband, Air Force Capt. Adam Davis. She said dancing made her feel alive: 'Like I'm floating... When I'm dancing, I don't feel the need to be doing anything else. My joy is complete'

On Patriots’ Day morning, they were walking near the marathon’s finish line when the second explosion left them tangled in a heap on the ground and Haslet saw something was wrong with her foot.

'I remember thinking, "That’s so gross," and being terrified that this is the moment I was going to die,' she said.

Haslet crawled toward a restaurant door, before someone dragged her toward a staircase.

Her husband, although also injured, took off his belt to make a tourniquet for her.

Then others arrived to help and soon she was in a triage area where someone wrote a number on her forehead.

'I just prayed that I had a number that was high enough to get help,' she said.

'I just kept screaming out, "I’m a ballroom dancer! I’m a ballroom dancer! Just save my foot"'

The next day, she woke up at Boston Medical Center and saw her mother.

'I told my mom "My foot feels like it’s asleep." And she said, "Adrianne, you don’t have a foot anymore.”'

Neither Haslet nor Roche said they had thought much about the Russian-born brothers, one dead, one alive, whom authorities said are responsible for the attack.

As she recovers, Haslet said she trusts law-enforcement officials will do what’s best.

She’s hoping to get a prosthetic device in the next two months.

Roche cannot bend her left leg, as a grid of metal rods that’s meant to help her heal protrudes into it.

She said she isn’t sure if authorities should seek the death penalty for the remaining bombing suspect, but says everyone should move forward without fear.

'If we’re afraid, the enemy wins,' she said.

Adrianne Haslet during a dance competition. She was injured in the second explosion while walking with her husband. Haslet said she thought she was going to die