Melanie Benn is a former American Paralympic swimmer who is a quadruple amputee after contracting meningococcemia.

She now works as a social worker and raises her awareness of the contraction of blood disease and importance of immunization relating to her disability.

[1] On Christmas Eve 1995 while studying psychology at Humboldt State University, Benn was aged 18 and had the first signs of the disease when she had difficulty walking along with burning pain in her legs and numbness on the right side of her body.

After she received the diagnosis of meningococcemia, a rare and fatal bacterial blood infection, she was forced to have her arms amputated below the elbows and legs above the knee to save her life after contracting gangrene from kidney failure and poor blood circulation.

[2] Benn started swimming after she received a kidney transplant from her father and began rehabilitation.