An industrial accident that crushed Virginia Guffey's left leg didn't squash the spirit of a woman who has been a mill worker for more than 59 years. (Watch the video.)

Guffey, 83, is back at work after her left leg was surgically amputated below the knee following a March 26 accident at U.S. Steel's Gary Works.

"I have no plans to leave. As long as they want to keep me, I'll stay," Guffey said.

She's been reassigned to the Midwest plant in Portage but hopes to return to Gary once she's adjusted to a prosthesis she expects to be fitted with soon.

"I'll be walking real good. I'm not one to sit back and feel sorry for myself," she said.

Guffey, whose close-cropped gray hair was fiery red when she started her job at U.S. Steel on April 19, 1949, said she never lost consciousness on the day of her accident, even when her foot was severed.

Guffey, who works as an inventory clerk, said she was standing in the aisle with a car tire she was going to put into a Dumpster when she saw a man driving a forklift toward her.

He didn't see her, and she couldn't get out of his way, Guffey said.

"It happened so fast. He didn't know he'd hit me. I never did pass out," she said.

U.S. Steel spokesman John Armstrong said the accident was investigated, but he was unable to comment further.

Guffey was airlifted to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., where the amputation took place.

"It was my first helicopter ride," she said.

Now, back home in Merrillville, Guffey performs clerical duties at the Portage plant while seated in a wheelchair. She spends a couple of hours several times a week at Methodist Hospitals Southlake Campus' rehab center in Merrillville.

Therapist Mary Strimbu, on a recent afternoon, used a combination of weights and stretchy rubber bands to work with Guffey to strengthen her amputated leg.

Once Guffey receives her prosthesis, therapists will begin working with her to increase her strength and balance.

"Then it will be several months until she can walk as well as she can with a cane or with no cane," Strimbu said.

"I'm afraid once she gets her leg, she'll run and never stop," Strimbu said, with a smile.

Hard work is something Guffey said she's never shunned since starting work as a 20-year-old in 1944 for National Veneer and Lumber Co. in her hometown of Seymour, Ind.

She received 37 cents an hour at that job and received $1.36 per hour as an assorter or tin flipper when she started at U.S. Steel.

"I love to work and have always had a positive attitude on life. I don't plan on getting old," she said.

Guffey never married and never had children and considers her fellow workers her family since her parents and four siblings are deceased.

"If I didn't work, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I just like to be around people. I always have," she said.

Her next work anniversary will be her 60th.

"God willing, I'll get to it," she said.