FLOURISHING AFTER A SHARK ATTACK

Ali Truwit has quite an inspiring story of courage, determination and Christian faith. In May of 2023, Ali lost her foot, and almost her life, when she was brutally attacked by a shark. Now, just over a year later, this young lady will represent the United States in the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris.

The Attack
Ali had just graduated from Yale in May of 2023, and to celebrate, she took a trip to Turks and Caicos with her best friend, Sophie. The two of them had been teammates on the Yale University swimming team.

While snorkeling in the beautiful ocean waters, a shark quickly appeared and attacked them. Ali and Sophie fought back, and Ali felt a horrible pain in her leg. The shark had ripped off her foot and part of her leg. Then the two girls swam 75 yards in the open ocean toward their boat.

“I was bleeding profusely,” Ali recalls. “Both of us knew the shark was still circling. But we had to get back to the boat to save ourselves.”

When they reached the boat, Sophie quickly applied a tourniquet on Ali’s leg to stop the bleeding, saving her life.

Truwit was airlifted to a Miami hospital in Miami, where she underwent two life-saving surgeries. It just so happened that one of Ali’s closest friends, Hannah, was doing her medical school rotations in that same trauma hospital. Hannah was able to be by her side during those difficult hours before Ali’s parents arrived.

Ali was later transported to a hospital in New York to be closer to her family. On her 23^rd birthday, doctors amputated her leg just below the knee.

Ali said, “My Christian faith played a role in helping me get through the shock and pain of my trauma from the earliest moments of the shark attack and hospitalizations, and even continues today. There’s a Bible verse my mom and I have repeated to each other during hard times for as long as I can remember: ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ From the earliest moments in the hospital immediately following the attack, Sophie would hold the phone to my ear and my mother would quote that verse. We repeated that Bible verse for several hours as I lay waiting in extraordinary pain for the emergency med-vac to arrive to get me to a trauma hospital in Miami. We have continued saying that Bible verse throughout the last 14 months of my recovery, and it still sustains me.

“I listened to a Christian worship song throughout my recovery called ‘Million Little Miracles’ because it reminded me of the many miracles that were part of my story: the fact that Sophie and I did not pass out in the water but instead swam ourselves to safety; that the shark did not bite us when it came back the second time; that Sophie had just graduated medical school and had the medical knowledge and such composure in a stressful time, as well as the selflessness, to tie a tourniquet on my leg and stop the bleeding and save my life; that Hannah happened to be in medical school rotations in the exact trauma hospital I was airlifted to and was able to be with me in the resuscitation room before I could even see my parents; that I had so many incredible surgeons who made the exact right decisions on how to save me; that I have such a tight-knit family whose love knew and knows no bounds; and that I survived.”

The Recovery
It was difficult for Ali to come to grips with what she lost.

“There have been a lot of challenges for me with body image, learning to love my new body and accept it and learn that it’s beautiful in its own right.

Ali was fitted with a prosthetic leg which provided its own challenges.

“I’ve had to relearn life without part of a leg: how to once again sit, stand, walk and run, how to do stairs and the everyday things.

“Some things I’ve lost and I’ll never get them back; that’s just my reality. But the things that I can get back, I’m going to fight for them tooth and nail. And swimming and the water has been a place I have loved forever. And I was determined not to lose that.”

So six weeks after the shark attack, Ali got the courage to get into her backyard pool.

“It was hard to get back in any water. The last time I was in there, I was swimming for my life.”

But she did get in the pool. And slowly but surely, her love of the water returned.

She contacted her longtime swim coach, Jamie Barone, and asked him to help her learn how to swim again. And less than four months after losing part of her leg, she came to her mom, saying she wanted to find a way to try out for the Paralympics.

Her mom, who was Captain of the Yale swim team when she was a student, had a former teammate who connected Ali to the U.S. Paralympic swim program, where she began to train and compete for a spot in the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.

She trained four to six hours per day, six days per week. And in June 2024, Ali competed in the Paralympic trials in Minneapolis, and made the U.S. team. She’ll swim the 100-meter backstroke, and both the 100-meter and 400-meter freestyle races.

The 2024 Paralympics
Just over a year after losing part of her leg to a shark attack, Ali will represent the United States in the Paralympic Games in Paris.

“To represent my country makes me feel proud and also really grateful. I am so excited and just really can’t wait to wear the American flag on my cap in races. Our flag stands as a thank you to the everyday American heroes all around me who have worked so hard this year to save me and are helping me rebuild my life.