COEUR d'ALENE - As the soccer ball sailed past, Isabelle James turned and set out after it. She charged into a group of other kids at Ramsey Park, kicking and running, kicking and running.

Every few yards or so, one of the youngsters would land a solid blow to the ball, and it would shoot off in another direction, bouncing over the green grass.

And the pack, with 6-year-old Isabelle in the mix, was hot after it on a sunny, Friday afternoon at a Skyhawk soccer camp.

Her mom, Kim James, watched proudly, a smile on her face.

"It's awesome, I love it," she said.

Every once in a while, her daughter wearing a red jersey, and pink shorts with white stripes, would tumble to the ground, then rise again, just like any other kid might do.

"She keeps going," Kim said. "She's after the ball like everybody. She's not afraid to get hit or get knocked down or anything."

But young Isabelle isn't quite like everybody else.

From a distance on a soccer field, she fits right in, letting out an occasionally "whoop" when her team does well, or putting both hands to her head in dismay when the other team scores.

Look closer and you see she hobbles a bit, limps a little, her left leg tends to swing around a little more. It kind of clomps along at times.

That's because she lost that leg in an accident almost five years ago.

This week, with her prosthetic in place, Isabelle tried soccer for the first time.

And she scored a goal.

"I don't think anybody has as much heart in this as she does," said soccer coach Caleb Bice. "She's doing pretty good."

Isabelle's father, Lee James, said he knows his daughter can take care of herself. It's the other kids he was worried about.

"The only thing I had to tell her is when you're out there, just be a little careful because you can hurt somebody with that robotic leg," he said, laughing.

He said Thursday, she was even helping him stack hay bales at their farm south of Coeur d'Alene. As he watched her play soccer, he beamed with pride.

"She's got wonderful spirit," he said.

A few moments later, during a brief break from practice and games, a delighted Isabelle dashes up to her dad and wraps her arms around him, sharing a big hug.

When asked how she's doing out there, she says she's a fast runner. And if she gets tired, well, "I just stop for a little bit, then I keep on going."

Yes, she keeps on going, her mom says.

"She's been through so much, you talk about resiliency," Kim James said. "You look at her, good things come out of a bad situation."

"It's part of your journey," she continued. "You take what God gives you and you make the best of it."

An accident

It was July 24, 2005, when Kim hopped on the riding lawn mower at the family's Sun Up Bay Road home.

Tiny Isabelle, not quite 2, was inside with two older brothers, Dylan and Louis, and an older sister, Emma. She had heard the mower start up and wanted to go with mom, and managed to pull open a sliding door in the back. She came out behind the house and walked up behind the mower.

Kim never saw her.

She backed up.

There was a scream and Isabelle was trying to run away, her leg badly bleeding.

It was a chaotic, frantic scene. Isabelle was screaming, it was about 100 degrees and the kids didn't know what happened, didn't know what to do. But when mom yelled for them to get in the car, they did.

"I call them my rescue heroes. They all listened to me," Kim said.

Dylan, the oldest, held his baby sister's leg upward as they drove at speeds of 100 mph for Kootenai Medical Center, 20 minutes away.

"I think he caused her to make it to the hospital because he held her leg up, I think it gave her a few more minutes," Kim said. "It was a miracle that she made it to Kootenai Medical Center."

Isabelle was quickly flown to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. Because of the severity of her injury, she was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

"They lost her at one point," her mom said.

But they brought her back.

She would remain at Harborview five weeks as they reconstructed her leg that had been severed just below the knee.

"Talk about resiliency," her dad said.

The family celebrates the date of the accident.

"It's the day we saved her life," Kim James said.

Another surgery

In the coming years, Isabelle faced challenges adjusting to her prosthetic leg. She suffered a broken left leg when she fell once, and continued to have trouble walking.

Last year, doctors operated again and amputated the leg above the knee. That allowed her to be fitted for a new prosthetic that had a hinge, basically, and could act like a knee.

"So when she falls, the knee bends for her and we don't have this risk of her breaking her leg anymore," Kim said.

And it allowed Isabelle to run.

A week after the surgery, with a cast on her leg, Isabelle insisted on going to school. She played with classmates, hopping around the gym, dribbling a soccer ball as she went.

Last spring, she joined a school jogathon and ran 19 laps, but it ripped up the graft on her leg. Still, she ran.

"I don't know anybody who could do that," Kim said.

Isabelle's prosthetic will be adjusted as she grows, but no further major surgeries are anticipated.

"There's a lot ahead of her. Right now, we're in a holding pattern," Kim said.

Isabelle, who is adept at slipping a sock and liner on her leg, then fitting it into the prosthetic, isn't afraid to talk about her injury. At the soccer camp, she asked the coaches if it was OK if she removed her leg so the kids could see it and understand how it worked.

Sometimes, Isabelle becomes frustrated when she tries to remember what happened, her mom said.

"She turns to me, 'Tell me about the accident,'" Kim said.

Isabelle

At home, Isabelle likes to read and play the piano. She loves to collect the eggs. She likes to swim, too.

"I have chickens and I used to have pigs. But we have turkeys," she says, flashing a big smile of a few missing front teeth. "And we have fish in a pond."

She was thrilled this week when she scored a goal, and proudly received a certificate when the camp was over Friday.

Randy Degenhart, Skyhawk director, said Isabelle displayed determination. When the camp began, she said she wanted to play goalie.

"I said, 'All right, you can go back there.' She gets drilled in the face with the first shot. I look back, she kind of looks at me. I said, 'Are you all right?' She said, 'Yeah, I'm fine.' She keeps playing. That pretty much sums up Isabelle in a nutshell.

"She doesn't let her disability slow her down," he said. "She's cool talking about it."

Her daughter, Kim James said, has a mindset at so young an age to persevere where many would fall back and say they can't do it.

"She has this ability to go to another place," her mom said. "She never gives up. She wants to show us all what she can do."

Lee James said what happened to Isabelle has given him, and his family, a deeper understanding of life - and love.

"You want to share it," he said.