Making it to the Games, regardless of the outcome in future events, has already been a true feat. For her, the pool is her life. She has had it inside her since she was young. "Swimming and water were my first loves", she admits in an interview. An interest she shares with her mother Jody, who was the captain of the women's swimming team at Yale in 1991. But this young athlete's life would change completely after a fateful trip in May 2023.
It was the end of the school year. She had just graduated from college, was about to start a new job in New York in October, and Truwit decided to spend a few days in the Turks and Caicos Islands with her friend Sophie Pilkinton. A paradise, belonging to the UK and located in the Caribbean, ideal for snorkeling and celebrating the end of their studies. Everything seemed calm on a day of fun when, out of nowhere, a shark appeared in front of them: "It was aggressive, I felt it wanted to attack us, and we responded the only way we could: by defending ourselves," she stated in an interview with NBC.
After several pushes and kicks to free themselves from the animal, they started swimming towards the boat, which was about 70 meters away. They had to do it as quickly as possible, but by then, Truwit had already lost her left foot. It had been bitten off. Nevertheless, she tried to stay "firm and conscious," focusing on reaching the boat alive. Once there, Sophie helped her friend by applying a tourniquet on her leg until they could ask for help and transfer her to a hospital in the United States. That saved her life. On land, the pain was unbearable, and although they were able to stop the bleeding, she would still undergo two more surgeries that ended with the amputation of her leg.
"The key in these cases, and perhaps why she has been able to reach the Paralympic Games, is to have a good muscle base, and being an athlete, she probably had it," says Ana Isabel Rodríguez Montalbán, a doctor specializing in angiology and vascular and endovascular surgery. "If it was an amputation below the knee, she would have had to do many exercises for the quadriceps, abductors, glutes... and also for extension and flexion of the joint. If she managed to save the knee, and being a young person, the recovery could have been much better as she wouldn't have to bear all the weight on the hip. Then, once the prosthesis was implanted, she would have done many balance exercises," Rodríguez points out.
Many hours in the gym, effort, and training with two clear objectives: being able to return to the water and regain self-confidence. "At first, I was scared. Hearing the sound brought back memories", Truwit confessed when describing her first contact with the pool after the incident. Facing that last memory in the sea was not easy, but nothing was going to stop her. She had to "fight for everything she could recover."
She put on her cap, swimsuit, goggles, and called her personal trainer and one of her main supporters, Jamie Berone, to start the process. "He has always helped me achieve more than I or others believed possible," highlighted the American. Additionally, to complete this process, she also looked at stories of overcoming from other athletes that could motivate her to keep going.
In just three months, she was already able to swim in a competition, and shortly after, she won the events held in Minneapolis to secure her spot and represent the United States in the Paralympic Games in the S10 category. "I will be able to finish this on my own terms, in a way I never would have imagined and at a level I never would have believed," the swimmer concluded in an interview.
In Paris, despite not advancing in the 100m, Truwit still has the opportunity to compete for medals in the 400m freestyle and the 100m backstroke. Additionally, she will be able to share the Olympic team with athletes like Jessica Long (32 years old), winner of 29 Paralympic medals since the Athens Games. "She's basically a workhorse that refuses to give up," her mother concluded.