NEW YORK (WABC) — When 25-year-old Ali Truwit lines up to run the TCS New York City Marathon on Sunday, it will mark another major milestone for her.
For most of her young life, Truwit’s competitive nature kept her in the pool, but one traumatic day changed everything and pushed her to run this year’s marathon to raise awareness for so many people.
“I flew to Turks and Caicos with a five-year plan for my life. I left on a medical evacuation plane not sure I was going to survive,” Ali Truwit said.
In May 24, 2023, two days after graduating from Yale University, Ali Truwit, a competitive swimmer, headed to the Caribbean to celebrate with friends.
While snorkeling, she remembers seeing a glimpse of a shark which began attacking her, bit off her foot at the ankle along with part of her leg.
“I was 23 years old and I had just become an amputee for the rest of my life,” Truwit said.
The group swam back to the boat where Truwit’s friend applied a life-saving tourniquet. Within a week, Truwit was airlifted to Miami for surgery, then transferred to New York City for the amputation.
Truwit says her five-year plan of working in consulting, going to business school and then into health care went out the window.
“I worked really hard to center myself on gratitude and on really recognizing how lucky I was to be alive,” she said.
The Connecticut native was determined to reclaim her life, but initially was paralyzed by the thought of getting back into something she loved: The water.
“After the attack, I was feeling really scared. Even just like the sound of water at that point when I would try to take a shower would trigger flashbacks to the attack,” Truwit said.
Truwit did slowly get back in the pool, and in 2024, won two silver medals swimming with the U.S. team in the Paralympics. Truwit truly believes it’s a choice how we approach bouncing back after trauma.
“I think we are all sitting on wells of capacity that we don’t know we have in us,” she said.
The Yale graduate is now focused on the TCS New York City Marathon, running 26.2 miles just two years after the shark attack. She’s still getting used to all the nuances of her prosthetic blade.
“There’s a lot of kind of things, like hills without an ankle are a new thing to learn to navigate, and I’m doing a lot of strength training to make sure my right leg is really strong to kind of assume some of that pressure,” Truwit said.
Truwit realized she couldn’t have gotten to this point without tremendous support, which she’s now paying forward through her foundation called “Stronger Than You Think.”
The nonprofit is focused on three pillars that Truwit says saved her life: Water safety skills, the Paralympics and raising money to donate prosthetics to those in need.
Her mantra: show the world, even after life steps in and changes your plans, what you are capable of.
“It is a message of like, it feels like your life is over and if you can get your mind around it and use the support around you or whatever is working for you, there is a full and beautiful life ahead,” Truwit said.
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