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Swimmer goes for gold at Paralympics a year after losing leg in shark attack
A U.S. swimmer has reclaimed her love for the water and is going for gold in Paris when the Paralympics kick off this week — just over a year after she lost her leg in a shark attack.
“I love comeback stories,” 24-year-old Ali Truwit said. “I’ve definitely relied on other people’s comeback stories to help me hold on to what feels like a bold and unrealistic hope — of fighting off a shark and surviving and losing a limb and making the Paralympics all in a year.”
The Connecticut native and a friend were snorkeling off Turks and Caicos on May 24, 2023 when a shark charged and bit Truwit’s lower left leg.
“We tried to fight back,” Truwit recalled.
“My immediate thought was, ‘Am I crazy or do I not have a foot right now?'” she added. “It was a really hard image for me. But you move immediately into action.”
Bleeding and with the shark circling, the former Yale swimmer went into competitive mode and raced 75 yards toward the safety of the boat.
Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Once on the boat, Truwit’s friend Sophie Pilkinton applied a tourniquet to slow the bleeding.
Truwit was rushed to the hospital and airlifted to the United States, where she had three surgeries. On her 23rd birthday, she underwent a transtibial — below-the-knee — amputation.
“A lot of dark days,” she said. “But I’m alive and I almost wasn’t.”
Putting in the work
As Truwit went to rehab, her “why?” began to change. Instead of, “Why did this happen to me?” she centered on, “Why not throw everything into something?”
More specifically, why not the Paralympics? After all, she had plenty of time to get ready for the 2028 Summer Paralympics in Los Angeles.
“But I’m not someone who waits,” she said.
So, Paris 2024 it was, even if the time frame was incredibly tight.
She went through prosthetic training and strength exercises. She also worked with trauma therapists, which led to narrative therapy to re-author her life and combat her nightmares.
“So that I don’t let fear rule my life,” Truwit explained. “I had lost enough and anything that was on the table for me to regain, I was going to fight to regain it.
“I didn’t want to lose a limb and my love of the water, too.”
She teamed up with her club coach, Jamie Barone, to help her get into contention for a Paralympic spot.
“I was just really curious how I was going to feel being back on the pool deck and back in a competitive space,” Truwit said. “The more I worked at it, the flashbacks reduced and the pain lessened.”
She qualified for nationals in Orlando, Florida, where she swam freestyle and backstroke. In April, she attended an international meet in Portugal — her first trip out of the country since the shark attack. Her mom was there as she shined in the 400 free S10 category, in which swimmers have a physical impairment affecting one of their joints.
“She’s just basically a workhorse who refuses to give up,” said her mom, Jody. “That’s who she was before the attack and amputation and that’s who she is every single day now.”
A spot on Team USA
At U.S. Paralympic trials in Minneapolis in late June, Truwit won the 100 backstroke, 400 free and 100 free. She joins a team that includes Paralympic swimming great Jessica Long and a host of returning medalists from Tokyo.
“I think hearing my name on that team was just a reminder to me that I’m stronger than I think,” said Truwit. “That we’re all stronger than we think.”
In Paris, she will have the support of about 50 family members and friends.
“A year ago, I was just working to get back in the water,” Truwit said. “I now get back in the water and that sense of joy comes back, and the smile comes back. To have that again is something I’m so thankful for. Honestly, it’s one of the moments in my swim career that I’m the proudest of because I know how much work it took.”
A Georgia county’s emergency call center was overwhelmed by calls on Sept. 4 about a school shooting at Apalachee High School that killed four people and wounded nine others, records released Friday by Barrow County show.
Local news organizations report many of the 911 phone calls were not released under public record requests because state law exempts from release calls recording the voice of someone younger than 18 years old. That exemption would cover calls from most of the 1,900 students at the school in Winder, northeast of Atlanta.
Calls spiked around 10:20 a.m., when authorities have said that 14-year-old suspect Colt Gray began shooting. Many calls were answered with an automated message saying there was a “high call volume,” WAGA-TV reported.
One man called 911 after receiving text messages from a girlfriend. He was put on hold for just over 10 minutes because of an influx of calls at the time of the shooting, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“She hears people yelling outside, so I don’t know if that’s officers in the building or that’s — I don’t know,” he said, adding that she was eventually evacuated out of the school.
Other adults also called 911 after their children contacted them.
“My daughter calling me crying. Somebody go ‘boom, boom, boom, boom,'” one mother said. The 911 operator responded: “Ma’am we have officers out there, OK?”
Parents of students at an elementary school and middle school neighboring Apalachee also flooded 911 seeking information.
“Sir, my daughter goes to school next door to Apalachee. Is there a school shooter?” one caller asked.
“We do have an active situation (at) Apalachee High School right now,” the operator responded. “We have a lot of calls coming in.”
More than 500 radio messages between emergency personnel were also released Friday.
“Active shooter!” an officer yells in one audio clip while speaking with a dispatcher, CNN reported. Another officer responds, “Correct. We have an active shooter at Apalachee High School.”
The shooting killed teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, as well as students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, with seven of those hit by gunfire.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation reported Thursday that the suspect rode the school bus on the day of the shooting with the assault-style rifle concealed in his backpack.
He then asked a teacher for permission to go to the front office to speak with someone, and when he received it, he was allowed to take his backpack with him, GBI said. He then went to a restroom, where he hid, and then eventually took out the weapon and started shooting, investigators said. A knife was also found on him when he was arrested.
According to investigators, the suspect enrolled at Apalachee High on Aug. 14, and between Aug. 14 and the day of the shooting, he was absent for nine days of school.
The family told CBS News that the suspect’s maternal grandmother had visited the school the day before the massacre to discuss the suspect’s alleged behavioral issues.
The suspect has been charged as an adult with four counts of murder, and District Attorney Brad Smith has said more charges are likely to be filed against him in connection with the wounded. Authorities have also charged his father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, alleging that he gave his son access to the gun when he knew or should have known that the teen was a danger to himself and others.
The 13,000 students at Barrow County’s other schools returned to class Tuesday. The 1,900 students who attend Apalachee are supposed to start returning the week of Sept. 23, officials said Friday.
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