Last Year, Ali Truwit Lost Her Lower Leg in a Shark Attack. Now, She’s a Paralympic Medalist

For Ali Truwit, the past 16 months have been a story of trauma, resilience, and—as of last night—triumph.

In May 2023, just days after she’d graduated from Yale, the former competitive Division I swimmer was attacked by a shark while snorkeling off the coast of Turks and Caicos. Truwit fought off the animal, which bit off her foot at the ankle, and escaped by swimming some 50 to 75 yards to a boat. After being airlifted to the hospital, she underwent three surgeries, including one to amputate her left leg just below the knee, as CNN reported.

Despite developing a (very understandable) fear of the water—Truwit told CNN she was conscious the entirety of the attack—she began competing in para-swim events last October. Several months later, she won a silver medal at the US Para Swimming National Championships, and this past June she qualified for the Paris Games.

And now, less than a year and a half after the life-changing attack, she’s one of the top Paralympic swimmers in the world: On September 5, the 24-year-old won silver in the women’s S10 400-meter freestyle at the 2024 Paris Games. Her time of 4:31.39 seconds set a new American record. (Aurelie Rivard of Canada won gold, and Hungarian Bianka Pap clinched bronze.)

“It’s a real full-circle moment and speaks to the support I have all around me,” Truwit said to the media following the race. “When you are truly faced with death and you understand what a second chance at life means, you want to make the most of it.”

Though brief from an outsider’s perspective, Truwit’s journey to Paralympic podium has been far from breezy. Earlier this year, she told US Paraswimming that “water and swimming were always my first loves.” But the shark attack more than complicated that relationship. As she detailed to US Paraswimming, speed training in the pool unearthed the trauma of having to sprint for her life to the boat; she also had to relearn many aspects of the sport, including how to start from the blocks and flip-turn using just one leg.

With time, though, Truwit learned to embrace her nonlinear progress.

“Truthfully, at the start, I thought that it was going to be that I overcame the fear and that was it,” she said after the race yesterday, per The Guardian. “I’ve learned through this journey that that isn’t what this looks like, that there will be days when it’s great and there are going to be days where I have to fight to get that love back, but I say I’m at a 90-10 right now at really feeling comfortable and happy in the water.”

Following yesterday’s race, a smiling Truwit—still in her swimsuit and cap—credited her parents for helping instill in her a sense of optimism and gratitude that buoyed her through the tribulations of the past 16 months. “My parents have done an incredible job in raising me and my three brothers to be adaptable and to try to look for the positives in life and appreciate all we’ve been given,” said the Darien, Connecticut, native, per The Guardian. “And so when I was faced with a life-changing trauma, I worked to see the positives and to focus on gratitude and let that carry me and adapt to the situation I was in.”

In that spirit of ebullience, Truwit posted yesterday on her Instagram Story a series of photos from the Paralympics. The caption? “Luckiest girl in the world.”

SELF is your go-to source for all things Paralympics. Follow our coverage of the Paris Games here.

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