The Alabama teenager who lost a hand and a leg in a shark attack in Florida has finally returned home, showing off her new prosthetics to a parade of fans.
Lulu Gribbin, 15, was swimming on a mother-daughter trip to Walton Beach on June 7 when she was attacked by a shark.
Gribbin’s left hand was torn off by the shark and doctors had to amputate her right leg halfway, from knee to hip. Her friend McCray Faust, 17, also suffered injuries to her foot.
After 11 weeks of stays at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola and Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina, the teenager finally returned home to Mountain Brook, Alabama on Friday.
Gribbin was greeted by a parade of people dressed in purple, her favorite color, and rode on the back of a golf cart where she waved to the crowd with her prosthetic arm.
Lulu Gribbin (right), 15, was given a welcome home parade after losing a hand and a leg in a shark attack in Florida.
The teenager documented her recovery on Instagram and showed she has kept her sense of humor by wearing a T-shirt that reads: ‘Before you ask, I was a shark.’
“We are incredibly grateful to have our family back under one roof for the first time in 77 days. We look forward to the next chapter of our family and seeing all that Lulu will accomplish,” her mother, Ann Blair Gribbin, said in a CaringBridge update.
Supporters who attended the parade said they came to show Gribbin how strong and inspiring she is.
“I was thinking how inspiring she is because she keeps going because I don’t know if I could do what she’s done,” said seventh-grader Kennedy Romeo. WVTM“It was amazing to see his recovery.”
“I’m here to support her,” Leslie Higgins said. “She’s a very strong person, and if it were me, I would have been scared. I want to tell her, ‘You’re a strong person, you’re a strong woman. Keep going.'”
The teenager has documented her recovery on Instagram, sharing photos and videos as she learns to live with her new prosthetics.
Gribbin was swimming at Walton Beach on June 7 when she was attacked by a shark. Pictured: Emergency workers rush shark bite victims to the hospital.
One image shows her smiling broadly as she tries out her prosthetic leg and wearing a T-shirt that reads: “Before you ask, I was a shark.”
Gribbin has tried adaptive sports, including basketball, soccer and cycling. He even attended an NFL preseason game between the Jets and Panthers as part of a medically led therapeutic outing.
The brutal attack on the teenager occurred around 3pm on that fateful day when Gribbin and her friends were swimming near a sandbank.
A crowd formed around the ocean’s edge, which had been evacuated by Walton County authorities and lifeguards. That’s when Gribbin’s twin sister, Ellie, approached her mother and told her that Gribbin had been attacked.
“I saw the wounds on his leg and I started screaming. He was lifeless, with his eyes closed and his mouth white and pale. The wound on his leg or whatever was left of his leg looked like something out of a movie,” the mother said.
Gribbin (pictured) was attacked just hours after a 45-year-old Virginia woman, Elisabeth Foley, was bitten by a shark at around 1:15 p.m. four miles away.
Two men managed to pull Gribbin out of the water and several medical professionals who were on the beach rushed to his aid.
She was then airlifted to a trauma center in Pensacola in critical condition.
Just four miles away on the same day, a 45-year-old Virginia woman, Elisabeth Foley, was bitten by a shark around 1:15 p.m.
He suffered significant injuries to his abdominal and pelvic regions and had to have the lower part of one of his arms amputated.
Alabama Sen. Katie Britt has proposed legislation named Lulu’s Law in honor of the teenager that would authorize emergency telephone alerts about shark attacks.
