above: Ali Truwit in the pool
Photographs by Katharine Calderwood
In July Of 2023, Ali Truwit put on a neon green bikini, hoping the bright color would make what she was about to do a little bit easier. Her family waited on the outskirts of the pool of their Darien home—her mother, father, three brothers and physical therapist—all nervous about how she’d react once she was in the water.
Ali is no stranger to pools. In fact, she’s a four-year letter winner for the Yale women’s swimming and diving team. But today was the first day she’d get back in the water after a shark attack that ended with her losing her foot and part of her leg less than two months earlier.
She put on a floaty belt in case of the painful sensation of electric shocks in her leg became too much, or she had a flashback of the attack. But what scared her the most was that she would get into the water and realize she lost her love for the it. “I really didn’t want to let fear rule my life,” she said. “I lost my foot and I’m never getting it back. So if I can get my love of the water back, I’m going to fight for that.”
Ali loved the water for as long as she can remember. Her mother, Jody, knew even before that. As a colicky baby, Ali cried for hours until Jody realized that the sound of running water helped her calm down. Growing up, she loved baths, sat in showers as long as she could, and took advantage of getting four water lessons in one when her brothers hid in the showers at the swim school, wetting their hair to convince their parents they had participated.
The Truwits are a water family—spending summers on the boat in Long Island Sound and catching water views whenever the opportunity presents itself. Ali spent her summers at Brendan’s 101 after racing her friends at her summer swim club. That transitioned into swimming at the Darien YMCA until Ali was 12, when she started training full-time at Chelsea Piers.
above: Truwit’s parents have been her biggest supporters since her early days of swimming competitively at the Darien YMCA, Wee Burn and Chelsea Piers. She credits her family, friends, doctors and her coach Jamie Barone for helping her through her recovery and journey to the Paralympics.
That’s where she met Jamie Barone, founder of the Chelsea Piers Aquatics Club and Ali’s coach since she was 11 years old. “The thing I remember about that first lesson with Ali more than anything was every time she stopped swimming, she looked up and just had the biggest smile on her face,” says Jamie.
“I have something special in the water, not because I’m the best, but because I love it,” she says. “I’m genuinely happy in this space.”
But on that summer morning by her family’s backyard pool, Ali wasn’t feeling happy. She was scared the sound of water would trigger her to relive the attack. Her mom, Jody, a cognitive behavioral therapist, coached Ali on grounding techniques in case things went awry. “If you’re feeling fear, you touch the edge and put your feet on the bottom of the pool,” Jody told Ali. “Fear can make us irrational, but if your hand is touching the edge and your feet are touching the bottom, you know you’re safe.”
Ali’s normally bright, toothy smile was replaced with a tortured look on her face as she slid herself slowly into the pool. After a few bumps, Ali built on her progress, first with a doggy-paddle, jazzercise, and eventually a race against her brothers who, in true Truwit fashion, gave her no mercy.
The moment is amazing, considering it had only been two months since Ali’s mom got the call from a nurse in Turks & Caicos telling her Ali was in critical condition after a shark attack. “I was in the driveway with presents in my hand—Ali’s youngest brother’s birthday was the next day—when I saw the call from an international number,” Jody said. “My stomach immediately felt sick.”
Jody dropped the packages, asking to speak to her daughter, when Ali got on the line. “She tried to speak but she couldn’t,” Jody said. “So I waited.”
Sophie, one of Ali’s best friends who was with her during the attack, took the phone and told Jody the news—that the shark had bit off Ali’s foot and part of her leg. She put the phone back near Ali’s ear.
Jody began to cry, telling Ali that she was sorry this happened and that she loved her. Finally, Ali’s voice appeared on the other end of the line—“Mom, please don’t cry. We need a plan.” Ali needed to get to a specialty hospital that was better equipped to help her.
Ali and Sophie were in Turks & Caicos celebrating Ali’s graduation from Yale and Sophie’s from medical school. On their first full day, the two were heading back to the boat after an afternoon of snorkeling. Seemingly out of nowhere, a shark began aggressively ramming them from underneath. “We just did what we could think to do in that moment, which was fight back,” Ali said. “So we shoved and kicked, and pretty quickly, it had my leg in its mouth.”
The two screamed for help but no help came. So, they decided to save themselves, swimming 75-yards in open ocean water knowing the shark was still circling. Stay conscious. Stay calm. Just get to the boat. Just get to the boat.
“I think I knew I was in a life-or-death situation so I focused on remaining calm to get myself through that,” says Ali. When they got to the boat, Sophie tied a tourniquet on Ali’s leg to stop the bleeding, ultimately saving her life. Ali was airlifted to a hospital in Miami and eventually to one in New York City where doctors amputated her leg below the knee on her 23rd birthday.
After her recovery, Ali got home to a bedroom full of gifts and pictures from friends and people from Darien and beyond. “That moment for me was so pivotal,” she says. “It made me realize that I have so many people who are going to help me through this, who believe in me, who love me.”
But the road ahead was tumultuous. After the attack, “half of her stayed exactly the same—smiling and joyful,” says Jody. “The other half of her was uncertain. Unsure. The saddest that I’ve ever seen her.”
Things she never thought she’d worry about were now at the forefront of Ali’s mind. Will the pain ever stop? Will anyone love me in this new body? Would I ever get married? Have kids? How will I ever wear a skirt again? Were people going to judge me because I look different? Will I ever be an athlete again?
In September, a few months after Ali’s first time back in the pool at her house, she called her swim coach, Jamie, to start training again. On October 2nd, they got back to work—but sessions looked different than they once had.
“Then, the scales were 90% therapeutic and 10% swimming,” Jamie remembers. “There would be days where she’d swim for 20 minutes because she’d be crying or just needed to talk.”
At that point, she wouldn’t look at her own leg and didn’t want anyone she knew to see her. In November, that fear came to fruition, with an unplanned run-in with a former teammate.
Jamie said, “She was just devastated. Beside herself.” The two sat down and Jamie said “I’m really sorry this happened, but you’re a swimmer and we’re in a public pool. This was going to happen eventually, we just have to tear the Band-Aid off.”
Jamie remembers sessions in those early that triggered panic for Ali. “Let’s just call it a day,” he’d tell her. “You came, you tried. Let’s just go grab a coffee.”
To which she replied: “No, I’m finishing the practice.”
Ali is every coach’s dream athlete. “If you told her to run through a wall in order to get better, she’d do it until either she falls out or the wall breaks,” says Jamie.
That mentality is what helped drive her breakthrough during her recovery. She showed up, again and again. Despite who she might run into, despite how she felt physically or emotionally, Ali showed up.
By February, she was walking onto the pool deck in a bathing suit in her prosthetic, without a care as to who saw it. Jody recalls, “she didn’t want to make anyone else uncomfortable by showing her prosthetic, until she realized she just had to accept herself and that she couldn’t carry the weight of how others reacted to it.”
Jamie also remembers the shift. “One day she was swimming back to the wall and popped up and did a 360 and was just having fun in the water again. That’s when I knew she started to heal,” he says. “I’ll never forget it.”
That shift in Ali was inspired by making sense of the nonsensical—of making meaning of what happened to her by turning her trauma into a story that gives others hope. It shows the magnitude of human capacity—that we all have more in us than we think.
Three months after the attack and just a few days after getting back in the water, Ali competed in her first Para swimming meet.
Then, in December, with bare minimum training, she won a ParaSwimming National Championship in the 400-meter freestyle for her division.
“I think that’s when the lightbulb switched on,” Jamie said. She was going to try to qualify for the U.S. Paralympic Trials six months later.
In April, she broke the Para record in the 100-meter backstroke.
When the U.S. Paralympic Trials finally came around, Ali rebroke her own record from April—swimming the event faster than she had when she had two feet.
A year ago, Ali was wearing a floaty around her waist working her way to the deep end of her family’s backyard pool. Now, she’s competing in Paris at the Paralympics.
The journey of her recovery, and ultimately her comeback, was one Ali credits heavily to the people around her. McKinsey, the consulting firm where Ali was offered a full-time position after she graduated, agreed to delay her start date to give her the time and space to recover from the attack. Then delayed it again to let her pursue the Paralympics. She credits Sophie for saving her life, her friends, family and medical staff—even her community—for getting her to a place where she can hold her head up high on a world stage and compete for her country.
The community in Darien heavily influenced her love of sports. “I think having rivalries in our towns, and that sports culture where people are excited to cheer and watch you, fosters an energy that really does translate to young athletes,” she said.
The chances of being attacked by a shark is one in 3.75 million—a fact that makes finding meaning in what’s happened all the more difficult for her. But for Ali, the journey to the Paralympics is a vehicle for her recovery and one of the ways she makes meaning of what’s happened.
The Paralympic movement is a space where she’s able to focus on all she has, as opposed to what she lost. It’s a way for her to be competitive and surrounded by people who give her hope—a feat she says is all the more important in this first year where she’s battling a lot of emotional and physical hurdles.
“Yes, I’m one of the few who has been attacked by a shark. But I’m one of the many who has had to go through trauma or unexpected change,” she says. “The goal of sharing my story is to show how life can knock you down and you can rise again.”
Beyond her Paralympic dreams, Ali started a foundation, Stronger Than You Think, designed to help those who have suffered limb loss, supporting activities for those with impairments and amplifying education around adaptive athletes, water safety, and more. Learn more about Ali and her foundation at StrongerThanYouThink.org.
ATHLETE STATS
EDUCATION
St. Luke,s School, Class of 2018
Yale University, Class of 2023—BS in Cognitive Science with a depth in Behavioral Economics
HOBBIES
Hanging out with her family dogs Taco and Lucky, baking, running, traveling and the NYT crossword puzzle
PASSIONS
Mental health, emotional intelligence, women in sports and female empowerment, Special Olympics
2024 PARALYMPICS TRIALS HIGHLIGHTS
Won gold in 100m backstroke, 100m freestyle and 400m freestyle (S10)
Set the American record in 100m backstroke after breaking it earlier in the year at the 2024 Para Swimming World Series USA
Posted two Top-3 World times in the 100m backstroke and 400m freestyle
YALE HIGHLIGHTS
Truwit is a four-year letter winner for Yale University’s swimming and diving team.
Follow Ali on Instagram @alitruwit
MORE THAN JUST A COACH
Ali’s coach, Jamie, was selected as one of eight coaches to lead the U.S. Paralympic Swim team in Paris—a testament to his talents as a coach considering he’s never trained a paralympic athlete before Ali.
Jamie is modest about the honor, but a quick look into his background proves how well deserved it is. Jamie was coached by and worked alongside Bob Bowman who coached Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time.
In his career, Jamie has coached athletes of the highest pedigree. He built a team that was non-existent and transformed it into one of the top 20 teams in the country six years later. For Ali, Jamie is not just her coach, but almost like a third parent—a lifeline during her recovery and training.
The first swim lesson he gave her was in the pool of his parent’s backyard when she was 11. Years later—through trials and triumphs—the two continue to work together, this time on a world stage.
ALI’S PARIS EVENT SCHEDULE
Sunday
SEPTEMBER 1
100M FREESTYLE
Thursday
SEPTEMBER 5
400M FREESTYLE
Friday
SEPTEMBER 6
100M BACKSTROKE