Trainee Paralympic swimmer saved by the flip of a coin after deciding to have his leg amputated

A trainee paralympic swimmer and cancer survivor has revealed how his life was saved by having his leg amputated - which he decided on the flip of a COIN.

Alexander Parra, 20, was a junior in high school when he received a devastating cancer diagnosis.

He was told he had to have chemotherapy for the next nine months.

Two months into the treatment, doctors told him the tumour wasn't being affected the way they anticipated.

The 15-year-old had to make a difficult decision, a knee replacement or amputate his leg.

Alexander flipped a coin, and chose the amputation.

Upon amputating his leg, doctors discovered that the cancer had spread.

If Alex had chosen the knee replacement, they would never have found out it spread.

On May 17th 2017, he was declared cancer-free.

Sadly, the following year, after doing everything to make sure the cancer didn’t come back, the teen found out he now had stage 4 lung cancer.

He was given three months left to live with a 10% survival rate.

He chose to remove the tumour and spent six months at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York.

Alex was cancer-free again on January 11th 2019.

With the help of the Challenged Athletes Foundation, he is now training to become a Paralympic swimmer.