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Just four days after now-eight-year-old Marshall Janson celebrated his first birthday (on December 22, 2008), his mother noticed a rash growing on his head and decided to take him to the hospital to get it checked out.
Her instinct ultimately saved Marshall’s life.
At the hospital, Marshall’s doctor diagnosed him with meningitis and deemed him “the sickest child he had ever seen.” Marshall’s vital organs failed two times, and doctors struggled to keep him alive.
The doctors were successful, but they had to amputate all four of Marshall’s limbs to save his life.
Marshall is now fitted with prosthetic limbs that are changed each year to account for his growth, and he refuses to let his body restrict him.
This eight-year-old is widely known among London’s Tottenham Hostspur football team after a video of him kicking around a football with his prosthetic legs went viral on the Internet. Not long after this accomplishment, Marshall went on to play in his very first football match.
More recently, Marshall went with his dad and a family friend to watch mixed martial arts and has gotten hooked.
He’s been attending mixed martial arts classes for over a month now, and was recently rewarded the honor of meeting martial arts master, Peter Maher; being presented a full-size replica of an 18-carat gold martial arts belt signed by Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) stars; and even performing martial arts moves in front of an audience of 10,000.
Marshall, surprisingly, doesn’t use his prosthetic legs during martial arts practice, but he’s said that he thinks “it’s great and [he is] going to keep it up.”
Even so, Marshall is already looking ahead to try another sport: rugby.
One of Marshall’s martial arts instructors can’t help but constantly admire the young boy’s strength. “Marshall is a real inspiration. There is nothing he will not try,” said Coach Maher. “We tend to say in life there are reasons why we can't do something but you look at young Marshall and it makes you think again.”
See Marshall’s incredible martial arts abilities for yourself:
