‘Front row parking’: Double-amputee’s funny Tinder profile scores attention and dates

There was nothing funny about what happened to Mandy Horvath that night in July 2014 when, she believes, someone spiked her drink with a date-rape drug at a bar and dumped her on train tracks in a small Nebraska town.

A coal train rolling along at 50 miles an hour ran over her, cutting off both of her legs above the knees.

The anger hasn’t gone away.

But that night did not steal her sense of humor, which lately has been on blast in her Tinder profile as the 24-year-old woman — originally from Smithville, Mo., but now living in Colorado — jumps back into the dating game.

Written in a way to make her disability sexy, her profile has been hailed by folks as one of the best Tinder profiles ever. The Huffington Post UK calls it “pure genius.” The Chive entertainment website has dubbed her a “beautiful badass.”

Using her tragic circumstances “as fuel for her hilarious and all-too-real Tinder profile,” notes the Chive, Horvath has “restored just a little faith in humanity and makes users browsing the nightmare dating app a little more hopeful.”

In her profile, Horvath lists her occupation as a “stand up comedian.” That’s her tongue planted firmly in cheek.

“Disclaimer: I don’t have legs, but don’t worry — I’m taking it in stride,” she wrote. “Just roll with it okay?

“My life was a train wreck (literally hit by a f***ing train), here’s some awesome benefits from it:

“I’ll never run away from you. Front row parking. Technically I can still doggy paddle. I even have sexy land roving bionic legs.

“Face: 10/10. Body: 8/10. Legs: 0.5/2. My Anthem: She Ain’t Got No Legs — Bloodhound Gang.”

“Since my accident happened, humor has been the driving force and it has made my recovery a lot easier,” Horvath tells The Daily Mail.

“It was so traumatic losing my legs but I’ve coped by joking about being legless every day, so it was only right to do so on my dating profile to connect with people in my own way.”

Originally from Smithville, according to her Facebook profile, Horvath was 21 and living in Manhattan, Kan., in 2014 when she lost her legs. She was drinking at a bar in Steele City, Neb., the night of the accident and has said she doesn’t remember much past the moment she stepped outside the bar for a while.

Authorities received a call around 2 a.m. that a pedestrian had been hit by an empty Union Pacific coal train, according to a report in the Lincoln Journal Star. Emergency responders found her under the train with life-threatening injuries.

The paramedics told her that her legs were gone but she didn’t believe them. In a panic, she tried to kick them in the air, and “it was only after I saw my blood everywhere that I knew it was true,” she has said.

She was in and out of hospitals over the next two years. Today she’s a student at the University of Colorado — Colorado Springs. Last year, she was surprised by Kansas City’s Car Santa, who gave her a car.

After losing her legs she felt too self-conscious to date, and when she did she had to answer questions like this: “How does sex work for you?”

In recent months she decided to sign up with Tinder after watching an inspirational YouTube video about disabled women dating.

“But now that I’ve broken the ice and sexualized my disability with my humor, I am acknowledged as an individual rather than someone bound to a wheelchair,” she told the Daily Mail.

Her profile has attracted lots of right swipes and dates, but nothing serious. Yet.

This story was originally published November 7, 2017 at 4:04 PM with the headline "‘Front row parking’: Double-amputee’s funny Tinder profile scores attention and dates."