Teen shark attack survivor Lulu Gribbin shares recovery journey and new mission
What began as a picture-perfect day at the beach in June 2024 would later leave 15-year-old Lulu Gribbin's life changed forever.
The Alabama teen was enjoying a mother-daughter trip to Florida with her twin sister, Ellie Gribbin, when a shadow in the water signaled danger.
"I just remember seeing this big brown shadow, I just turned around and just started swimming as fast as I could," Lulu told "Good Morning America" co-anchor Michael Strahan in her first sit-down interview alongside her family, which aired on Wednesday.
Moments later, Lulu was attacked by what witnesses described as a bull shark in the waist-deep water.
"I saw a glimpse of its body," she recalled. "So, I just saw a shadow, but I never saw, like, a tail or a fin. I never saw its eyes."
She continued, "I started swimming as fast as I could and then, like, in the movies they're like, 'Oh, you can't be, like, frantic or else they're gonna come after you.' So I just stopped swimming. And I told everyone to just calm down…and the next thing I know is that I raised my hand out of the water and there just was no hand there."
Lulu was pulled to the shore in and out of consciousness. Ellie immediately rushed to her sister's side, keeping her calm as they waited for help.
"I was just like, 'You got this.' 'You can do it,'" Ellie recalled what she told Lulu at the time.
"I just knew kind of what she needed, what she needed to hear at the time, 'cause there was so much going on, so much commotion," she explained. "And I'm sure she was overwhelmed. So I just had to be there for her."
Lulu was airlifted to a Pensacola hospital as her mother, Ann Blair Gribbin, and Ellie made the agonizing drive to meet her.
"All I could say was, 'Just keep breathing. Please keep breathing. God, please let her keep breathing,'" Ann Blair Gribbin said. "We didn't know anything, no idea if she was alive."
Her father, Joe Gribbin, flew in from Alabama, fearing the worst.
"It was terrifying," he said. "Just not knowing, as I flew down to Pensacola, if I was going to see my daughter, or, you know, go to a funeral, or get her body, or recover her."
Doctors saved Lulu's life, but she lost her left hand and, after multiple surgeries, her right leg was amputated between the knee and hip.
Innovative treatment and remarkable recovery
Lulu spent more than two months at OrthoCarolina's Limb Loss Recovery Center in Charlotte, undergoing multiple procedures, including targeted muscle re-innervation, which reassigns nerve endings to help control a future prosthetic and reduce pain.
"The nerve endings are reassigned to muscles within the limb and treat pain within the limb that's still there," explained Dr. Bryan Loeffler, one of the surgeons who treated Lulu. "But it also can help with a patient when they're trying to control an electric prosthetic."
She also participated in an investigational virtual reality therapy designed to ease phantom limb pain -- a sensation experienced by up to 80% of amputees.
"A lot of patients describe they feel like their hand is still there, and it's in a tight fist, and it won't let go or it's, like, burning pain," said Dr. Glenn Gaston, another member of her care team. "What we've done is taken a lot of the science behind phantom limb pain and worked to package that into a headset that's super immersive, and it makes the patients see their hands again, and walks them through opening and closing their hand again."
Since returning home to Alabama, Lulu refuses to let her injuries define her.
Golf has become her favorite outlet.
"So there's a golf attachment. This hand comes off, and then I attach a golf attachment," she said. "And I also have a crutch system, so I have crutches. So sometimes I'll play golf with one leg, or sometimes I'll play with my prosthetic and this leg."
She has also relearned how to slalom water ski and recently began running with a specialized prosthetic.
Lulu also told "GMA" about her next goal, saying, "I hope to be in the Paralympics for track."
"Well, you've achieved all the other goals that you've had so why not this one?" Strahan told her during the interview, to which Lulu replied, "Why not?"
Turning trauma into action
Lulu is now channeling her experience into helping others. She's advocating for "Lulu's Law," a proposed federal alert system modeled after an Amber Alert that would notify beachgoers in real time if a shark attack occurs nearby.
"Before my attack, there was another shark attack 90 minutes before me just a few miles down the coast," she said. "So, if I would've known about this, I would not have been in the water."
She is also launching the Lulu Strong Foundation to support amputees and expand access to cutting-edge treatments, including virtual reality technology aimed at easing phantom limb pain.
"We feel like the virtual reality for the leg would help other amputees, so really more innovation and research within technology for the amputee space," Blair Gribbin said. "Lulu had such a different experience than most do. So we wanna take that to others."
For Lulu, her strength comes from faith and family.
"I think knowing that I have a large support system behind me, and just continuing to get better, not only for myself, but for them, and just show them that anything is possible," she said. "And just knowing that God decided to save me, and so just showing him that he performed a miracle on the right person."
