BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) -- It’s been almost nine months since Lulu Gribbin was attacked by a shark in Walton County, Florida.
On June 9, 2024, her mother Ann Blair Gribbin wrote on the Caring Bridge website that the shark had bitten off her daughter’s left hand, and they had to amputate her right leg from her knee to her hip. The Mountain Brook High School student shared her story with the Monday Morning Quarterback Club and with local news outlets for the first time on Thursday.
Gribbin had been invited to appear as the keynote speaker as the Club announced $2.4 million in grants to 34 nonprofits during their Next Level Impact luncheon. The 16-year-old told reporters she is excited to have just gotten her driver’s license after taking an adaptive driving class.
Gribbin shared about what happened on June 7, and how she hopes to use her experience to help other amputees.
“Imagine looking down at your hand and there’s nothing there, just flesh and bone,” she stated.
Gribbin explained that she and her friends had been in the water diving for sand dollars when life changed in an instant.
“As we were riding the waves in,” she noted, “I turned around and heard my best friend scream, ‘shark’.”
Gribbin said her hand was bitten off, and the shark latched onto her leg. She was rescued and flown to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola where her mom said the first words she spoke after the breathing tube was removed were “I made it.”
Gribbin shared with the audience what she meant by that expression during her keynote address:
“Through the pain, agony, sorrow and grief I made it,” she said.
“I pushed myself, because I wanted to do it for those who didn’t make it; I chose to fight.”
Now the young woman said she’s utilizing the facilities at Children’s of Alabama. She’s also launching the Lulu Strong Foundation.
“Through my foundation I would love to have kids be able to experience what I’ve experienced and have just an amazing life an amputee,” she said.
Gribbin wants to figure out a way to help amputees get prosthetics faster, and to make them lighter weight.
She demonstrated the use of her new prosthetic hand for reporters:
“So I can turn it in circles, and I can close it and open it,” Gribbin said.
The technology has different modes which allows her to pick up different items. On Thursday we also heard from 17-year-old McCray Faust who was with Gribbin in the water that day:
“I was bit on my lower leg in the arch of my foot,” Faust explained. “It severed all the ligaments and nerves in the bottom of my foot.”
She said she also had to be taken to the same hospital in Panama City as Gribbin and had surgery on her foot. Faust added that she’s worked hard to learn how to walk again. She and Lulu’s twin sister Ellie Gribbin plan to form a junior board to host events for the foundation, along with other friends who were with them on that fateful day.
Their first event will involve golf, now that Lulu has fallen in love with the sport. When she was asked what message she would like to share with the world she had this to say:
“Never give up and stay positive, even in the most challenging times.”
The last thing Lulu told reporters was she would not change things for the better:
“I’ve had so many amazing opportunities and I’m just so glad to be blessed by the Lord, and all my family and friends behind me.”
Ellie Gribbin talked about the role of faith in this journey:
“It’s all a part of God’s plan,” she said. “God put every person there for a reason and he just worked in so many ways that day, and still works in ways today.”
For more information on her foundation, click here.