In a wide-ranging interview with 9Honey, one of Australia's leading lifestyle platforms, WanderSafe Co-Founder Stephenie Rodriguez shared the full arc of her journey from a life-threatening mosquito bite to becoming a pioneering para-athlete with her sights set on the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
One Bite, One Life Changed
The interview opens with the story that has become central to Stephenie's public identity. During a 2019 business trip to Africa, a single mosquito bite transmitted cerebral malaria — a disease she describes as criminally under-reported.
"Malaria is the world's deadliest parasite to humans, and malaria kills someone every minute," she told 9Honey. "Yet it doesn't make headlines like other diseases."
What followed was a medical odyssey: over 300 days in hospital, nearly 40 surgeries, and the eventual bilateral amputation of both feet. Stephenie became the first woman in Australia to receive above-ankle bilateral osseointegrated implants — titanium rods fused directly into her shinbones, with mechanical feet attached via an Allen key.
The athletes she meets have a simpler name for her. "They call me the robot lady," she said with a laugh.
Fencing Found Her
Without a sports background, Stephenie discovered wheelchair fencing through an NDIS newsletter and showed up to her first training session alone. Three lessons later, her coach told her she had the potential to represent Australia.
"Fencing found me," she said. "You need another person to get good at fencing. It's not just about physical strength but also about mental sharpness and the ability to adapt to different opponents. Plus, with no feet I can't ride a bike yet and swimming was too hard."
She became the first Australian female to compete internationally in the sabre since 1960, and has since grown the national women's program from zero to five athletes plus an under-11s development squad.
Paris 2024: The Audacious Goal
Stephenie set her sights on the Paris 2024 Paralympics with characteristic boldness — purchasing opening and closing ceremony tickets for her sixteen-year-old son, Constantine, before she had even qualified.
Her first international competition in France was a revelation. Walking into the venue on her bionic legs, she was met with stunned stares from athletes who had never seen osseointegration technology.
"It was like Monsters Inc., in the nicest possible way," she recalled. "In walks the robot lady. They had never seen someone walking on bionic legs."
The stares quickly turned to acceptance, and the para-sport community became a second family.
Malaria Advocacy Beyond the Piste
The 9Honey interview also spotlighted Stephenie's work as a malaria advocate. She serves as an ambassador for Rotary's Finish the Fight campaign and The Global Fund, using her platform to raise awareness about a disease that kills hundreds of thousands annually but struggles for media attention.
Her advocacy is deeply personal. The same mosquito bite that took her feet gave her a mission that extends far beyond personal safety technology.
The Through Line
What makes Stephenie's story remarkable is not any single chapter — the corporate career, the malaria survival, the amputation, the fencing, the WanderSafe mission. It is the through line that connects all of them: an absolute refusal to let circumstance define capacity.
Her message to 9Honey's audience was simple and direct. "Not many people survive cerebral malaria, so I am on a mission to impact a billion lives."
From the fencing piste to the WanderSafe platform, that mission remains unchanged.
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