After Losing Her Hand in an Accident, Rutgers Staffer Launches 5K to Help Amputees

The Lydia Amputees Foundation will hold its fourth annual fundraising walk April 20

Born poverty-stricken in Sierra Leone and orphaned at 11, Lydia Gray immigrated to America in her early 20s. She landed a job right away at Rutgers – first as a dishwasher, then a security guard – working nights and studying days.

Three decades later, Gray had earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree and was about to retire from her career as an audit administrator for the university to embark on a new chapter as an entrepreneur. She invested a large chunk of her savings into expanding her small business making and marketing Chin-Chin, a traditional West African fried pastry.

But just when her dream seemed within reach, Gray lost her left hand on March 5, 2020, after a horrific accident during a packaging machine malfunction in her new commercial kitchen.

No stranger to hard work or hard times, Gray typically faced adversity with her trademark smile and positive attitude. But after suffering this physical and financial loss as the COVID pandemic closed in, she found herself in a dark place.

“I was despondent. I was in a daze,’’ she said. “I was wondering, how am I going to approach life again with one hand?”

She spent the first part of lockdown doing a lot of grieving and a lot of walking. Soon she found a way to channel her pain into helping others.

“I started doing a 5K walk by myself around the neighborhood every day,” said Gray, who lives in Monroe. “That’s when I start thinking.”

At first, her thoughts swirled around how she and her husband could cover the $25,000 co-pay for her new prosthetic hand, and whether she would be able to return to work at Rutgers. After being fitted for her new hand, having her prosthetist Mike Rayer with Prosthetic Innovations  waive the remaining co-pay balance and teach her how to use it, her thoughts shifted to the hardships of others.

“I thought to myself, ‘How about the ones who don’t have any kind of insurance at all or have no means to pay for a prosthetic? How are they making it?” she said. “They have so much adversity in their lives and you find them on the streets homeless. How I can I help them?”

That drive to help others pulled Gray back from the brink. She founded the nonprofit Lydia Amputees Foundation, hosting her first Lydia 5K Walk for Amputees and Individuals With Disabilities in October of 2021. In 2023, she moved the event to April in honor of Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month. This April 20 marks her fourth walk at Alvin Williams Memorial Park in Woodbridge. The event draws around 100 participants and has helped her nonprofit raise more than $30,000 to support amputees in need of financial assistance or adaptive equipment.

Since founding her nonprofit, Gray has assisted at least 30 amputees locally, nationally and in Sierra Leone. Some find her through family, word of mouth or Facebook, like the man in Illinois who lost a leg and reached out to her for an adaptive bicycle so he could pick up his granddaughter from her school bus stop and run errands. Others Gray has crossed paths with in person, like the mother of four in New Brunswick who lost all four limbs to a flesh infection and needs help living in a one-bedroom apartment.

For Gray, it’s not just about sending a check. Whenever possible, she visits with the amputees she assists, because she knows a friendly face and sympathetic ear can lift someone’s spirits. She drove up to Massachusetts one weekend to hand-deliver a $1,000 check to a double-leg amputee facing eviction, and she regularly visits with amputees in a Trenton nursing home, hosting annual holiday parties and dropping off necessities such as clothes, wheelchairs and handicapped commodes.

“I want to make a difference in the life of anybody I come across in need. So many of them are suffering right now. I just want to make sure they are cared for,” she said. “This is my passion.”

That passion has given Gray a new purpose and restored her confidence. After being welcomed back to work at Rutgers, she decided to pursue another master’s degree, one that would help advance her nonprofit instead of her career. Last year, she graduated with a Master of Public Administration from Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration.

Gray’s colleagues are inspired by her ability to turn personal tragedy into a triumph, said senior auditor John Makropoulos, who has worked alongside her for more than a decade in Rutgers Audit and Advisory Services.

“She’s always smiling. She spreads her happiness and is just a hard worker and a pleasure to be around,” he said. “She is an amazing, resilient woman. I don’t think she could have handled things any better. If you didn’t know her before, you wouldn’t have known she lost a hand. That is how positive she is. That’s how strong she is.”

The source of that strength, said Gray, is Lydia Amputees Foundation. Though the nonprofit has helped dozens, Gray said she may be its biggest benefactor.

“It opened my world. I can now walk around without my prosthetic and I don’t care whether someone is staring at me,” she said. “That’s the reason why I want to continue to live, so I can help others.”

Those interested in participating in Lydia 5K Walk for Amputees and Individuals With Disabilities can register here.