[1][2] Bassett spent her first seven years of life in a government-run orphanage in Nanjing, China after she was found abandoned on the side of a street following the tragic loss of her right leg in a chemical fire as a newborn baby.

While growing up, she made a makeshift prosthetic leg using leather belts and masking tape and began to walk, aged six, but never went outside of the orphanage in which she was being raised.

Scout buried herself in books, plowing through as many political biographies as her brain could digest, and sports, which felt like the easiest and most direct route to assimilation.

[5] In 2015, Bassett still wanted to be a Paralympian and moved to San Diego so that she could do full-time training and she started breaking national records in the T42 classification.

In 2017, Bassett successfully attended the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London, United Kingdom, where she won her first international medals in the 100m and long jump.