Amber “AJ” Johnson is a 29 year-old, below-knee Ertl amputee as of June 3, 2003. The self-proclaimed PRINCESS of the 2006 ride, AJ lost her leg after a 9 year battle to save her left ankle after a car wreck crushed both ankles at age 17. At her high school graduation, her only goal was to walk to get her diploma. She did. As her ankle became more and more painful, she was able to do less and less. The goal of becoming an architect vanished. The goal of playing being a normal, young adult never happened.

What did happen, though, was AJ finally became tired of living life sitting down. She decided that crawling and wheeling around weren’t for her. She decided that she was tired of weighing 280 pounds and watching her behind grow larger every day that she couldn’t walk. So she decided to ask a doctor she’d never met to remove her foot and ankle via an Ertl type amputation.

Now, AJ has lots of goals that are reached with some good old fashioned training. Even though she spends lots of time teaching in her 2^nd grade classroom, she enjoys running, biking, and playing softball. She’s been known to enter a race or two and thrives on good competition---so watch out boys! AJ is a single mom to 2 wild West Highland White Terriers and loves just waking up every morning! She hopes that her message of being “differently-abled, not disabled” is one that people of various ability levels will remember.