HAVING lost her legs and an arm to meningitis as a toddler, Olivia Story can barely remember life without her prosthetic limbs.

Now 15, she has been through many pairs of legs as she has grown into a teenager.

Having realised how many she has accumulated, Olivia has decided to donate all of her old prosthetics to a charity that helps amputee children living in Africa.

Olivia, of Lazonby Terrace, London Road, Carlisle, said: “I hope they go to some children that need them and can’t afford their own legs, so that they can walk.”

In total, she is handing over 25 legs, plus some prosthetic arms and attachments.

It is the largest donation that the charity, Legs For Africa, has ever had in one go.

Mum Kim Brown explained how it came about.

“We’ve kept them, not really knowing what to do with them. Prosthetics are so expensive, we really wanted to give them to someone that would be able to use them,” she said.

“There was a poster in the Limb Centre at the Cumberland Infirmary showing a little girl in Africa wearing a prosthetic leg. I contacted Legs For Africa and they said they’d never had such a large donation in one go.”

When Olivia was little, her family raised funds to ensure she could always afford the limbs she needed, even if they weren’t available on the NHS.

This has enabled her to have everything from realistic skin and pink heels, to swimming flippers, a violin attachment and specialist running blades.

Nowadays Olivia rarely uses a prosthetic arm, and she can manage well without. She has one pair of legs she uses every day, and a spare pair that can be used for parts if broken.

She has decided to keep her tiny baby legs, but is donating all of the rest to the charity.

Olivia added: “It makes me feel happy because it will make other people happy too. I’d love to meet one of the children who get my legs to see how it has impacted their life.”

Looking back at how far Olivia has come since her illness, Kim said: “I’m really proud of her. She’s really positive and that’s the only way to be. She doesn’t see herself as disabled. It doesn’t bother her and she doesn’t get upset. She’s got some really good friends and just enjoys her life.”