One Year After Devastating Shark Attack, Ali Truwit Is Back In The Water, Now As A Para Swimmer

Ali Truwit always felt at home in the water.

Even when she and her brothers were little and the boys hid in the locker room when it was time for swim lessons, she couldn’t wait to get in the pool. Then she never wanted to leave. She tried other sports along the way, but her passion and talent led her to become a Division I swimmer for Yale.

“Water and swimming were always my first loves,” said Truwit, 23, from Darien, Connecticut.

At this time a year ago, Truwit never would have imagined how swimming would soon save her life. In April 2023, she was a month out from college graduation, preparing to run a Mother’s Day weekend marathon with her mom, and looking forward to a post-graduation trip to Turks and Caicos to celebrate.

It was there, snorkeling in the clear blue Caribbean waters alongside her former Yale teammate and one of her best friends, Sophie Pilkinton, that they were attacked by a shark.

“We kicked and shoved back, but it bit through my foot and we had to swim 50 to 75 yards back to the boat to save ourselves,” she said. “Without that training, I’m not sure we would have made it back to the boat in the open ocean. In a story where a really unlucky thing happened, there was a lot of luck in who was around me.”

The shark took off Truwit’s foot at the ankle. Pilkinton applied a tourniquet in the boat, helping to save Truwit’s life, and she was airlifted to a Miami hospital. After undergoing two life-saving surgeries to fight infection, she was then moved to New York, where doctors amputated her leg below the knee so that she could ultimately have better mobility with a prosthetic. The surgery was on her 23rd birthday.

A month later, Truwit knew she had to get back in the water.

“I was really fearful,” she said. “I still haven’t been back in open water. But the last time I heard the sound of water we were swimming for our lives. I remember the whole attack; I was conscious the whole time. So it was hard to even hear the sound of water again and not have flashbacks to the attack, and that was definitely something I had to overcome, but it was important to not lose my love of the water.”

Truwit knew about the Paralympics, and had always had a huge amount of admiration for athletes with disabilities. Now that she was one, even in her early days back in the pool she thought about her possibilities for competition. Truwit’s mother was also a Yale swimmer, and one of her friends once coached a Para swimmer, who connected her to U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Famer Erin Popovich, who now runs the U.S. Para swim program. Popovich guided Truwit through the steps she’d need to take to get involved.

Then, Truwit’s prosthetist connected her with another of his clients, swimmer Jessica Long, who’s on her way to competing at her sixth Paralympics this summer and hoping to add to her 29 medals. Truwit and Long struck up a friendship and recently appeared on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” together.

“I spoke (on the show) about what a big gift and an inspiration she’s been as a Para swimmer during these hugely transitional months that have been so life-changing, but also having her as a friend and a fellow female amputee is game-changing,” Truwit said. “Her confidence and how she shows her prosthetics proudly outside of the pool gave me strength and self-acceptance. She’s so strong, so real, so fast, and I’m lucky to have her in my life. And I could name so many more in Para swimming who’ve embraced me and really changed my trajectory in this first year as an amputee.”

The transition to swimming as a lower leg amputee hasn’t been easy. Everything she did with two legs, from standing on the starting blocks to flips on the wall, Truwit’s had to learn to do with one. She’s also had to learn to compensate for the lower body imbalance by changing her breathing pattern and head and hip positions. There’s been a lot of pain, and a lot of tears, Truwit said. Beginning to train for speed again brought back the trauma of having to swim for her life to reach the boat. She’s cut more than one practice short because it was just too much.

But three months after the attack, and a few days after getting back in the water, Truwit competed in her first Para swimming meet at the Fred Lamback Georgia Para-Swimming Open. Then, in December, she competed at the U.S. Para swimming nationals and won a silver medal.

“I’ve made it a priority to focus on what I still have and what I still can do, and the Paralympics and swimming has been invaluable in helping me to stick to that mindset as much as I can,” she said.

Truwit knows it will take a lot of work to make it onto the team that will travel to Paris this summer. The trials will be just a little over a year since the attack that changed her life, and that’s not a long time. But to make the Paralympic team while several friends are hoping to make the Olympic team would be a dream come true, she said. She also hopes to bring more attention to the Paralympic program and give back to the community that’s helped her so much during the months since the attack.

And if she doesn’t make the team this year, she’s still proud of herself for even trying.

“Of course it’s really easy to sit and think, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ and be upset, and I’m working hard to focus on how I can make meaning of it and move forward, and this feels like a great way to do that,” she said. “I know it’s a super-fast turnaround, just over a year, and there’s a lot I have to accomplish, but I feel really excited to try.”

Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to USParaSwimming.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.