The 26-year-old, who also won silver medals in the 100m and 400m, was presented to the crowd as part of the Celtics "Heroes Among Us" programme during their NBA match against the Golden States Warriors.  

"It's a tremendous honour," said Forber-Pratt.

"I'm so excited.

"And I get to see one of my hometown teams."

Born and abandoned in Calcutta in India, she was three months old when she was adopted by Rosalind and Larry Forber-Pratt of Natick in Massachusetts.

Two months after arriving in the United States, she contracted an illness resulting in the diagnosis of transverse myelitis, a neurological disorder that affects the spinal cord.

Rushed to the hospital, she was not expected to live, only to overcome the odds, although she was left paralyed from the waist down.

Forber-Pratt has returned to India twice to help start orphanages in India West Africa, where she helped develop a paralympic programme for girls..

Forber-Pratt, who bronze medals in the 400m and 4x100m at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, is working on a doctorate degree in human resource education at the University of Illinois, where she is a graduate teaching assistant.

Her next major competition is due to be the Boston Marathon on April 18.