Absolutely Inspirational Ali Truwit

Ali Truwit’s story is one of grit, grace, and glory. She’s turned what she calls her ”tremendous misfortune” into purpose and mission. Tragedy into triumph. …She is bright, and brilliant, and beautiful…and a kind of real-life superhero. Her example is absolutely inspirational!

Ali grew up in Darien, attended New Canaan Country School from 6th grade to 10th grade and then St. Luke’s for high school, and swam with the Chelsea Piers Aquatics Club starting when she was 12. During her senior year of high school, Ali began conducting research for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence…and then she was also recruited to compete for the Yale Women’s Swimming and Diving Team. She graduated Yale Class of ‘23, with a B.S., majoring in Cognitive Science with a depth in Behavioral Economics.

The day after her graduation from Yale, Ali headed down to Turks & Caicos for a celebratory vacation, together with her good friend Sophie Pilkinton, who’d been the Captain of the Yale Swim Team and a senior when Ali joined the Yale Swim Team as a freshman, and who had herself just days before graduated from the University of Tennessee Medical School. The next day, the two young ladies jumped off a charter boat to go snorkeling in clear waters in a shallow reef…and a shark attacked!

“It was terrifying and everyone’s worst nightmare,” Ali recounts the harrowing details. “We were snorkelling in a common tourist area, that’s not known at all for sharks, in a shallow reef. …I got a glimpse of it swimming up to us, and then in an instant it was underneath me. The shark started bumping, ramming, and attacking us…and then bit my foot off. …I was losing a lot of blood. We made the decision to swim for the boat, which was about 75 yards away. The shark came back during our race back to the boat. When I got back into the boat, Sophie applied a tourniquet that saved my life. …And from there I was rushed to an island hospital where I spent several long, painful hours waiting for a medivac to Miami for life-saving surgeries. …Then, seven days later - on my 23rd Birthday - I underwent a transtibial amputation at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. ”

“Getting back in the pool was physically and emotionally excruciating, and filled with fear from flashbacks,” Ali remembers.

“The last time I’d been in water - I was fighting for my life! So I crutched out to the pool and carefully got in just a tiny bit with my shoulders and head out of the water. The cold water sent what felt like shooting electric shocks into the still-raw nerve endings in my leg. From there, I continued getting more and more comfortable in the water one day at a time, starting to swim a little again, and gradually facing the fear and reclaiming my love of the water. I had to relearn my balance in the water just like I was starting to do on land. I started a daily rehab routine that pretty quickly turned into a regular exercise regimen. I began to regain my strength and confidence. I was doing three physical therapy sessions a day. My parents and my brothers would get into the water with me and goad me to race…and there was no way I was letting them win!”

“Hearing that I was back in the pool, a friend of my mom’s from when they were both on the Yale Swim Team together called and encouraged me to think about para swimming, and informed me that there was a ‘Path to Paris 2024’ of required competitions in and out of the country to be eligible to attend the Paralympic Trials the following June - which would be just a year turnaround time from the attack and amputation. The first required meet was in Georgia, just a month later, and just three-and-a-half months after my amputation,” Ali recounts. “The times to make Paris were going to be fast - like Division 1 fast - and though I was daunted at how fast I would have to swim to ‘punch my ticket to Paris’  - and so soon after my trauma -  the thought of trying to make the Paralympics sparked a real hope in me! My old high school coach came out of his coaching retirement and we got to work… All the planning and hard work and dedication it took qualifying for Team USA and then going to the Paralympic Games turned out to be my best path to recovery!

…In August 2024 - just 15 months after the shark attack - Ali arrived at the Paris Paralympics and won TWO Silver medals, one in the women's 400m freestyle S10 with an American record of 4:31.39, and another in the 100m backstroke with another American record of 1:08:59!

…Fast forward to the present, and…

Ali is currently featured in Sports Illustrated’s 2025 Swimsuit Edition!

And Ali is also the subject of an Impact Partners documentary called Stronger Than You Think, that’s just been completed and is now being entered into film festivals.

“If you’d asked me when it happened where I’d be one year later…I would have said the couch,” Ali admits.  “The Paralympics gave me a goal to help me overcome adversity and reach for something bigger than I imagined - proving that I was stronger than I thought. I chose to document my comeback in real-time, starting about eight months post attack, allowing crews to follow my journey of self-discovery - learning to adapt as an amputee, pushing through setbacks, and setting the bold goal of giving everything I had to make Team USA and compete in the Paris 2024 Paralympics. The challenges were unimaginable, but I fought to heal, hold onto my love for the water, and find meaning in it all. I’m excited to share this journey and hope to inspire others to realize that we are all stronger than we think.”

“My swimming, and my success at the Paralympic Games, has given me a platform to help others,” Ali proclaims. “I read the other day that you have a better chance of dying by getting hit in the head by a falling coconut than by a shark. What happened to me doesn’t make a lot of sense. 

But helping other people always makes sense. So the opportunity to spread messages around turning hardship or trauma into hope, and raising awareness around the Paralympics, and showing the world what people with disabilities can do, is empowering and healing for me. …And that’s why I founded my charity, called Stronger Than You Think, and formed a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit foundation called StrongerThanYouThink.Org - focused on the three pillars that saved my life and helped me rebuild: access to prosthetics for women and girls, support for the Paralympic movement, and support for water safety programs. I donated my earnings from my two Paralympic Silver medals, and donate the speaking fees I earn to Stronger Than You Think.”

“I also got into baking as a part of my recovery. My goal was to find hope and happiness wherever I could, because recovery and losing a limb was so hard. At first it was just something that I could do that made me feel good, that forced me to stand longer and longer on my new prosthesis as the doctors ordered, and that gave me a way to thank all the doctors and nurses and physical therapists I was seeing every day with some tasty cookies and cakes. But soon we had too many baked goods around the house for anyone to eat, or to give away, so I launched my own little business called TruwitsTreats and began selling my baked goods to benefit Stronger Than You Think.”

“I was shocked at how much even a basic prosthesis costs, and more sophisticated prosthetics - with all the fittings and customizations that are involved - can be Forty Thousand Dollars or more,” Ali details. “Insurance often only covers a portion, and just doesn’t keep pace. Especially with how fast kids grow out of their prostheses. Some insurance only covers one. …I, for example, have three different prostheses: a running blade, so that I can go out for a jog and try to reclaim my love of running; a high activity lightweight prosthetic for everyday use, and; a cosmetic, realistic-looking prosthetic that I can wear with high heeled shoes. …I want to remove barriers to access to recovery and to living a full life for those women and girls who can’t afford it. We’ve already given a prosthesis to an energetic and incredible 7-year-old girl named Talia, and we are providing prosthetic support to an amazingly resilient and wonderful 25-year-old woman name Celeste, who's a pediatric speech pathologist and who recently became a quadruple amputee after going into septic and toxic shock following a routine medical procedure. And we’re excited to be providing two teenage girls with their first high-heel prosthetic foot - for prom & graduation - that they’ll be able to use into their adult lives!”

“I like doing things that make other people feel good! What happened to me is so rare and very unlucky, but it heals me that sharing my story can help other people.I’m happiest when I’m positively impacting the people around me. I’ve lost a lot more than just my leg, but I’m determined to turn trauma into purpose. Adjusting to my prosthesis and learning to walk with it was an agonizing process, but I’ve gotten good at celebrating small wins. And I’m getting better at running on my blade,” Ali says…when the truth is that she ran the Darien Turkey Trot on her walking prosthesis in 2023 - only six months after the shark attack - and ran it again in 2024, on her prosthetic running blade, and holding to a pretty amazing 7:39 per mile pace!

“I’m grateful to be alive, but I’m still healing, and learning life with a prosthetic, and in a phase of trying to recover life’s joys,” she reveals. “I’ve regained my love of the water. Reclaiming my love of running is next on my list. …And some  things I love, I don’t know, things like if I can get comfortable with the kind of beach vacations we’ve always enjoyed…right now I have no plans to ever get into the ocean again, so we’ll just have to see how my healing unfolds. For now, I’m focused on reclaiming life’s passions, and on increasing representation for people with disabilities. I want to show the world what people with disabilities can do. And I want to use my foundation Stronger Than You Think to help others through hardship.

Ali shared that, “I continue to work hard at radically accepting what has happened, but I’m proud of the progress I’ve made with self-acceptance. In the beginning, I was really self-conscious about how my prosthesis looked, and I didn’t want people to see it. I was a 23-year-old girl struck with the idea I would never wear short skirts or dresses again. But, over time, I realized that I was only making life harder on myself by hiding my prosthetic. …If people stare - and they do - I tell myself I’m helping them acclimate to seeing someone with a prosthetic. That they will stare less at the next person with a prosthetic they see. …Acceptance is a journey.  

…I had to take my prosthetic leg off on international TV at the Paralympics! It was impossibly hard…but I did it! It shows me I’m stronger than I think I am

…and I think we’re all stronger than we think!” 

In November 2024, Ali started working as a Business Analyst at the top-tier international business consulting firm McKinsey & Co., and simultaneously continues with speaking engagements, including most recently as a keynote speaker at Lincoln Center and The Tate Museum in London. She’s also recently made appearances on The Today Show,  CBS Evening News, and The Kelly Clarkson Show. Ali has also started writing her memoir, which will be published in 2027 by St. Martin’s Press, entitled 

A Million Little Miracles. 

…And, in 2026, Ali is slated to start earning her MBA at Harvard Business School.

There is nothing this young lady can’t do if she sets her mind to it! 

…She’s absolutely inspirational!