Ex-AFL hopeful Josh Hanlon recalls inspirational journey to Beijing Winter Paralympics

When Josh Hanlon throws himself between plastic poles on a sit-ski at speed, he gets the same rush he once felt crashing into ruck contests.

The all-action 24-year-old is making his Winter Paralympics debut in Beijing this year, less than four years since suffering the illness that took him away from the football field.

Hanlon loved footy and for a long time, it loved him too.

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As a youngster, Hanlon was called into the GWS academy, where he spent four years between the ages of 15 and 19.

Then as a 20-year-old in June 2018, Hanlon had played a game of local football before he checked into a hospital with an illness -- and didn’t leave for three months.

It was a life-threatening strep A bacterial infection and amid complications, toxic shock and sepsis forced a series of amputations.

When his surgeries were over, Hanlon had both legs amputated below the knee and his dominant right hand amputated below the wrist.

But never one to spend too much time idle, having turned 21 in hospital, Hanlon quickly turned his focus to rehabilitation and what came next.

“I just wanted to get the hell out of there,” he told AAP.

“That was my mission from pretty much the day I walked in, I wanted to get back out.

“But that didn’t happen for three months.

“Once I got to rehab there was no stopping me from learning to walk and getting out of there.”

The next challenge was finding a new sport for a guy whose entire life is based around being active.

Wheelchair basketball, something he still enjoys, was the first port of call.

Less than a year after leaving hospital, Hanlon, who’d been to the snow just three times before his illness, was invited to a