(NEW YORK) — A woman who lost a leg in a shark attack is now heading to Paris to compete in the 2024 Paralympics.
“The 1st time I got back in [the water] was in July, a year ago,” Ali Truwit told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “I got back in with a floaty around my stomach because we weren’t sure how I was going to respond in the water again, and now I’m headed to the Paralympics.”
She added, “To represent my country is just an incredible kind of journey that makes me feel proud and also really grateful.”
Truwit said she was on a post-college graduation vacation with her best friend in Turks and Caicos in May 2023 when the attack occurred.
The two were out in the ocean snorkeling when a shark appeared “seemingly out of nowhere” and started to attack them, Truwit recalled.
“We fought back, but pretty quickly the shark had my leg in its mouth, and the next thing I knew, it had bitten off my foot and part of my leg,” she said.
Truwit said she and her friend had to swim roughly 75 yards back to the snorkeling boat.
Once on the boat, Truwit said her friend tied a tourniquet on her leg to stop the bleeding. Truwit was eventually airlifted to a hospital in Miami, where she underwent two lifesaving surgeries.
She was later transported to a hospital in New York to be closer to her family and friends at home, where she underwent a trans-tibial amputation on her left leg.
The surgery took place on May 31, 2023, Truwit’s 23rd birthday.
“Very dark days,” she recounted of that time in her life. “But I am alive, and that’s what I try to focus on and kind of just live the life that I’ve been given again to the fullest.”
Adapting to a new normal
After her amputation, a prosthetic leg helped provide Truwit with better mobility, although she said she still faced challenges adapting to her new normal.
“I’m relearning life without an ankle,” she explained. “I have to learn how to sit again and stand again, and walk again, and run, and how to do stairs and the everyday challenges.”
Truwit said she also faced pain in her leg as well as the risk of infection, and struggled emotionally in addition to the physical limitations.
“There are 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,” she said. “And I think that’s been something that’s been so huge for me.”
Truwit described her recovery process as a “very long and bumpy road of ups and downs.”
She said she was able to pull through it with the help of family and friends and a shift in her own mindset.
“I think I really, early on, wanted to send myself the message that [what] would happen to me was not going to stop me from doing things I love and doing things I think I’m capable of,” she said.
Reclaiming her passion by fighting back her fear
The incident also affected Truwit’s love for water, which she said she had considered a place of comfort and peace her whole life.
In order to confront her fear, Truwit said she waded into her backyard pool just six weeks after having her leg amputated.
“Mentally and physically, it was really hard, [but] with the help of my physical therapists and my family, we worked to just get me back in, little by little,” she recalled.
From there, she began reaching out to her longtime coach Jamie Barone, who she said has been coaching her since she was 12. She said she asked him to help her run sets for exercise again.
After regaining her love of water, Truwit said she decided to test out her ability to make it to Paris for the Paralympics, which she said became “the most healing decision I could have made for my recovery.”
She expressed her intention to compete in the Paralympics to her mom, who she said is a former captain for the Yale University swimming team.
Through one of her mom’s former teammates, Truwit said she was connected to the U.S. Paralympic swim program, where she began to train and compete less than four months after her amputation surgery.
In June, Truwit competed in the Paralympic trials in Minneapolis and made the U.S. team in the Women’s 400-meter freestyle race.
In the weeks leading up to the Paralympic Games, which start on Aug. 28, Truwit said she has trained for as much as six hours per day, six days a week at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado and with her coach in Stamford at Chelsea Piers in Connecticut.
“It’s so fun to be with my teammates and the coaches and to learn more about what’s to come, so I’m really excited for it all,” she said. “I’m in a race with the American flag on my cap. That, to me, is not only a huge honor in itself, but also a way for me to thank the everyday American heroes who have helped save my life and help me rebuild my life.”
Swimming at the Paralympic Games will take place from Aug. 29 to Sept. 7.
Inspiring others through her journey
Prior to the shark attack, Truwit said she had always been a private person, but she later learned that sharing her story has helped others as well as herself.
“The exposure is new for me, and every time someone tells me that hearing my story helps them through their trauma, or watching my outlook or my mindset or the way that I bounce back has encouraged them, that they can do it too, that heals me,” she said. “That helps me. That gives meaning to me of an otherwise random trauma.”
Looking back at her journey, from the start of her recovery process to where she is today, Truwit said she has witnessed her own strength firsthand.
“We are so much stronger than we think,” she said. “We have so much more in us than we think we’re capable of contributing and achieving and aiming for … and that is such an exciting thought to me.”
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