About BeeLine
Bethany, with the surfboard she was on when she was attacked by a shark
She Wasn’t Afraid to Get Back in the Water
Bethany Hamilton was born and raised near the beach in Hawaii. From a very young age, Bethany was one of those kids who really took to the water. Her whole family was into surfing and so Bethany began to surf at a very young age. She began to enter surfing competitions when she was only four or five years old and continued to compete for many years.
“I remember when I was around seven or eight is when I really started getting into surfing because some of my best friends surfed and we just liked going to the beach and being in the ocean,” said Bethany. “When I realized I wanted to be a pro surfer, I was probably around eight or nine. I just started competing and doing really good in just like the amateur contests around Hawaii. One of my first major events was the Rell Sunn Annual Menehune Surfing Championships and that’s in Oahu and I did good in that and ended up winning it. I guess—even though I was really young—you could really see where my career was heading and how I was doing in it and it was looking really promising.”*
Bethany had a natural talent for the sport. Growing up near the beach, she had a great appreciation for marine life and nature, but she was always active and sporty both inside the water and on land.
The day of the attack started off like every other day. It was Halloween of 2003, and Bethany was out on the water surfing with her best friend Alana Blanchard, Alana’s brother Byron, and Alana’s father, Holt. Bethany recalls that there were a lot of sea turtles in the water that day and that she was lying on her surfboard and dangling her left arm in the water. Byron Blanchard recalled that they had been on the water for about 30 to 40 minutes before the shark attack took place.
The attack was sudden and unexpected. “We’re just sitting there and all of a sudden Bethany goes, ‘I got attacked by a shark,’” remembered Holt Blanchard.** In an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Bethany recalled that she didn’t even raise her voice and that she just calmly said, “I got attacked by a shark.”
At first, Holt Blanchard thought that Bethany was kidding. “All of a sudden she was paddling in toward Byron and Alana and myself,” Holt said. “And I saw blood in the water and I realized she did get attacked. I paddled up to her and at that point I noticed her arm was gone.” ** The shark had severed Bethany’s arm just below the shoulder and taken a chunk out of her surfboard to boot.
Bethany’s shoulder was bleeding profusely, but they were more than 200 yards from shore and Holt Blanchard knew that he had to do something quickly before she bled to death. Holt used the leash of his surfboard to make a tourniquet that he tied around Bethany’s shoulder in attempt to stop the bleeding—doctors would later credit Holt’s quick-thinking in making the tourniquet with saving Bethany’s life. Astoundingly, as Bethany revealed to Oprah Winfrey, she didn’t feel any pain from the time when her arm was bitten off until she went into emergency surgery at the hospital.
Holt and family led Bethany to the shore and paramedics soon arrived and rushed Bethany to the hospital. In an odd turn of events, Bethany’s father was already at the hospital because he was scheduled to have knee surgery that day— Bethany took his place in the operating room. By the time she got into surgery, Bethany had lost 60 percent of her blood and her chances of survival were growing slimmer by the minute. But Bethany, naturally strong and determined, beat the odds and pulled through.
Based on the bite marks on her arm and surfboard, experts guessed that the shark that attacked Bethany was probably a 14-foot tiger shark. Later that day, fisherman caught and killed a 14-foot tiger shark within about a mile of where Bethany was attacked. There was surfboard residue in its teeth, which experts confirmed were a match to the bite marks on Bethany’s surfboard.
Possibly the most amazing part of Bethany’s story is not just that she survived the shark attack, but that one month later, she was back in the water and surfing again. Soon after, she was surfing in competitions once again, as if nothing had happened. Bethany admits that there was a bit of a learning curve: she had to learn to kick with her feet a lot more rather than paddle with both arms, as surfers usually do.
Surviving the shark attack alone had already garnered Bethany some worldwide attention. But the bravery she showed by getting back into the water and onto her surfboard made her truly famous.
In 2004, Bethany published an autobiography about the shark attack and her experience called Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board. A feature film called Soul Surfer—based on her autobiography— was released in 2011. Anna Sophia Robb played the role of Bethany, but Bethany did all the surfing stunts for the movie herself.
Bethany continues to surf and competes as a professional surfer. She married Adam Dirks, a minister, in 2013, and they now have two sons together. Their first son was born in 2015 and their second son was born in 2018.
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