Ali Truwit swims to Paralympic silver one year after losing her leg in a shark attack

After a shark attack just days after graduating from Yale last May, former Division I swimmer Ali Truwit had to have her leg amputated and was left with a lot of questions.

“I am a lifelong athlete – 10 days before the attack I ran a marathon with my mother,” Truwit told The Kelly Clarkson Show earlier this year. “And I sat there thinking, 'Am I ever going to run again? Am I ever going to be able to be an athlete again?'”

The answer is an Olympic yes.

Three months after the attack, Truwit took part in her first Para swimming competition. Within a year, she had qualified for the Paralympic Games in Paris. And on Thursday, the 24-year-old took second place in the women's S10 400-meter freestyle, the longest distance in Paralympic swimming.

Truwit's time of 4:31.39 not only earned her a silver medal, but also set a new American record.

The NBC announcer summed up Truwit's comeback as follows: “She swam for her life, and now she has swum to the podium.”

“I am really, really grateful to be able to contribute to the US team’s medal count because what I have accomplished is thanks to the tremendous support of everyone across the country and that has brought me to where I am today,” said the The Connecticut native said at the pool in Paris, where about 50 Her loved ones cheer her on – including her boyfriend, whom she credits with saving her life.

She admitted that the past year had been “full of fear”: going back into the water, taking her first steps with a prosthetic leg and even showing her leg on national television.

“And I think I've learned throughout my life that the only way to overcome fear is to face it, and that's what I did,” she added. “I just faced it and used the support around me to help me do that.”

On Friday, Truwit finished second in the qualifying heat for the women's 100-meter backstroke and is scheduled to compete in the event's final shortly after noon ET.

How Truwit got back into the water – and to the Paralympics

Truwit and a friend were snorkeling off the coast of the Turks and Caicos Islands in May 2023 when a “huge shark came out of nowhere and started fighting us,” she said The Kelly Clarkson Show.

They fought back, but the shark bit Truwit's left foot off at the ankle. The two college swimmers managed to swim about 45 to 65 meters back to the boat, where their friend was able to apply a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

“Without this training, I’m not sure we would have made it back to the boat on the open sea,” said Truwit said US Paralympic Swimming in April. “In a story where something really unfortunate happened, I was very lucky with the people around me.”

Truwit was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Miami, where she underwent surgery and received blood transfusions to fight the infection. A few days later, she was transferred to New York, where her leg was amputated below the knee on her 23rd birthday.

Truwit, who had loved swimming all her life, knew she had to get back in the water – and that it wouldn’t be easy.

“I had lost enough and I wanted to get back whatever I could,” Truwitt said. “I didn't want to lose a body part or my love of the water.”

Last September, Truwit turned to her former club coach James Barone to start training again.

As a below-knee amputee, she had to completely adapt her swimming technique and relearn every aspect of the sport – from standing on the starting blocks to rolling turns on the wall to adjusting her breathing patterns and balance.

“The more I worked on it, the fewer flashbacks there were and the less pain there was,” Truwit said.

A series of connections set Truwit's Paralympic journey in motion.

A friend introduced her to Paralympian Erin Popovich, who runs the U.S. Para Swimming program, and explained how she could get involved. Truwit's prosthetist put her in touch with another of his clients. highly decoratedsix-time Paralympian Jessica Long, who quickly became a friend and mentor.

Truwit competed in her first para-swimming competition in October and won medals at the U.S. Championships in December. In April, she competed in an international competition in Portugal, her first trip abroad since the attack. And in June she has qualified for the Paralympics in the swimming disciplines 100 m backstroke, 400 m freestyle and 100 m freestyle.

“I will finish this on my terms, in a way I could never have imagined, and at a level I could never have imagined,” Truwit told NBC back then. “To think about being able to represent my country is so incredible. We all have more in us and for me that is such an exciting thought.”

Truwit also has founded a charity to provide financial support to people who need prosthetics and to help them feel safe in the water. The project is called “Stronger Than You Think”.

Copyright: NPR