Flesh-Eating Disease Survivor Aimee Copeland Walks Onto Katie Couric's New Show 'Katie'

It was Copeland's first public appearance since she contracted necrotizing fasciitis through cuts she got on her legs falling into the water when a zipline broke. 

Couric was in tears watching Copeland make it to the front of the stage, but it wasn't long before the talk show host began asking the survivor some hard questions.

Couric asked if at any point Copeland wanted to die, to which the young woman responded:

"I love life. It's a beautiful thing... even more so now," she replied, and added that wanting to die never crossed her mind.

"Senses are so deepened," she continued to tell Couric. "Everything smells better. Everything is more vibrant, more beautiful."

She recounted how the bacteria got progressively worse:

"My entire leg was a dark purple color," Copeland said. "I wasn't able to walk. I wasn't able to speak. The only thing I was able to babble was, 'I think I'm dying.'"

She was even strong enough to get rid of her hands.

"I think the most extreme moment was when my dad lifted up my hands for me to see, and my fingers were black and my hands were a deep, blood red," she said. "I said, 'Let's do this.' I mean, what else are you going to do? Live with some dead hands?"

She then went on to explain how she is enjoying walking around on her new prosthetic leg:

"You take it for granted just to look people in the eyes," she said. She said that her boyfriend cried the first time he saw her stand and said, "I've missed you up here."

Copeland is not one for self-pity either, even after losing both her hands and legs:

"There's a lot I don't have that other people have, but there's a lot I have that other people don't have," she told Couric.