CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WTVD) -- On this season's "Dancing with the Stars," everyone seemed to be an Amy Purdy fan.
She's an amazing dancer, but what wowed America is that she's also a double amputee. She's missing both legs below the knee. Purdy lost her legs to bacterial meningitis when she was a teenager.
Like millions of Americans, a Chapel Hill family cheers Purdy on every week. However, unlike most fans, they watch because they know firsthand that they're watching a miracle. The Harrisons lost a daughter to bacterial meningitis.
"She was quite a character," said Paul Harrison, whose daughter Julia loved just about everything in life. "For a 19 year old, she was surprisingly complete."
In pictures, he points out that she's always got her arms around someone.
"I think the most wonderful thing about her was how wonderful and accepting she was," said Harrison. "So that her array of friendships at high school was like a little U.N. club of people."
Julia graduated from East Chapel Hill High School, and went on to Tulane University.
"I've often wondered what she might have done," said Harrison.
Just weeks before her 20th birthday, the Harrison's life, and Julia's changed forever.
"She called us on a Friday night, Nov. 9, 2001 and said, 'You know, I don't feel very well, and she was dead the next morning," said Harrison.
Julia had bacterial meningitis. She went to the emergency room with flu-like symptoms, and within hours, she was gone.
"It's a terribly lonely feeling," said Harrison. "It's a feeling filled with terrible despair and anxiety about negotiating with God -- trying to get your child back. You can't do that though."
Meningococcal disease, or bacterial meningitis, is most common among babies, teens, and young adults like Julia and Amy.
It does have a vaccine, but in North Carolina it's not mandatory.
The time between symptoms and the sort of saying, 'I don't think I feel very well,' to death can be within 24 hours," said Harrison.
For Purdy, within 24 hours, she was in the hospital on life support. She lost her spleen, kidneys, hearing in her left ear, and both legs below the knees.
Now, she's a dancing miracle.
"It's been very emotional to see her," said Harrison. "It reminds us what our daughter might have become in her own way, and in her own right. Just in terms of the beauty of human will to overcome and to achieve and succeed. It's a breathtaking story."
The North Carolina Commission on Public Health recently approved requiring meningitis vaccinations by seventh grade, but it has to be finalized next month so it can take effect for students going into seventh grade after 2015.
On average, about 16 people gets a meningococcal disease in North Carolina every year, and most people die from it.