A teen girl has dreams of becoming a Paralympic athlete after losing her limbs in a shark attack. 15-year-old Lulu Gribbin was attacked by a shark in June 2024 while swimming off the shore of Walton County, Florida, according to PEOPLE.
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Teen Dreams Of Becoming Paralympic Athlete After Losing Limbs In Shark Attack
Lulu’s mother, Ann, reported that the shark bit off her daughter’s left hand. Doctors also had to amputate her right leg “halfway up from her knee to her hip.”
Now, over a year later, Lulu is “grateful” to be alive and is involved in multiple sports. In an interview with ABC News, Lulu revealed that she was hoping to one day become a Paralympic athlete.
“I hope to be in the Paralympics for track,” said Lulu to Good Morning America.
Besides track, Lulu also enjoys golf. “So there’s a golf attachment,” said Lulu. “This hand comes off, and then I attach a golf attachment.”
There’s a lot more involved when it comes to her amputated leg as well. “And I also have a crutch system, so I have crutches,” she continued. “So sometimes I’ll play golf with one leg, or sometimes I’ll play with my prosthetic and this leg.”
A Fight For Survival
Looking back on the accident that changed her life, Lulu remembered the terrifying shadow of the predator. “I just remember seeing this big brown shadow,” she recalled seeing. “I just turned around and just started swimming as fast as I could.”
All she saw was the shadow when it bit into her, nothing of its tail, fin, or eyes. “and then, like, in the movies they’re like, ‘Oh, you can’t be, like, frantic or else they’re gonna come after you.’ So I just stopped swimming. And I told everyone to just calm down…and the next thing I know is that I raised my hand out of the water and there just was no hand there.”
Going in and out of consciousness, her family pulled Lulu to shore. Ellie, Lulu’s sister, ran to her side to comfort her. “I was just like, ‘You got this.’ ‘You can do it,'” Ellie remembered saying.
Her mother, on the other hand, was praying. “All I could say was, ‘Just keep breathing. Please keep breathing. God, please let her keep breathing,'” said Ann. “We didn’t know anything, no idea if she was alive.”
Joe, the father, was also scared as he wasn’t with her when it happened. “It was terrifying,” said Joe. “Just not knowing, as I flew down to Pensacola, if I was going to see my daughter, or, you know, go to a funeral, or get her body, or recover her.”
The Aftermath
After spending over two months at OrthoCarolina’s Limb Loss Recovery Center in Charlotte and undergoing many procedures, she was beginning to have a smooth recovery.
On top of her dreams for the Paralympics, Lulu is now becoming an advocate for others. She has proposed “Lulu’s Law,” which would be a federal alert system that could notify beachgoers of real-time shark attacks nearby.
“Before my attack, there was another shark attack 90 minutes before me just a few miles down the coast,” said Lulu. “So, if I would’ve known about this, I would not have been in the water.”
Furthermore, Lulu is launching the Lulu Strong Foundation. This will help support amputees and help them gain access to cutting-edge treatments. Lulu had undergone virtual reality technology treatments that helped ease her phantom limb pain, but not everyone has access to that.