Lulu Gribbin was just 15 years old when she survived a devastating shark attack off Florida’s coast, an encounter that cost her left hand, part of her right leg and nearly her life.
What Gribbin did not know when she went into the water that day in 2024 was that another woman had been bitten by a shark about 90 minutes earlier, roughly 3 miles away along the same stretch of beach. If she had been aware of that earlier attack, Gribbin said, she never would have gone swimming.
Her experience has now helped spur new federal legislation aimed at warning beachgoers more quickly when a shark bite has been reported nearby.
President Donald Trump last week signed “Lulu’s Law,” a measure that directs the Federal Communications Commission to permit emergency alerts to be sent to mobile phones after shark attacks. The law, which Gribbin pushed for publicly, allows shark attacks to qualify as events that can trigger emergency notifications. States will be responsible for putting the alert systems in place. Alabama, Gribbin’s home state, approved a similar warning system last year through legislation sponsored by Republican state Rep. David Faulkner.
AP Photo / Kim Chandler, File
“It’s really just common-sense legislation. It says that whenever there has been a shark attack in a certain area where you are near, it will send an alert to your phone, exactly like how an Amber Alert system works when a child is abducted,” she said.
Gribbin said she believes the alerts could help prevent other swimmers from facing the same danger. “I definitely see this law working in the future and I’m really excited to hopefully save lives,” she said.
Gribbin recalls shark attack
Gribbin was among three people bitten by a shark on June 7, 2024, in waters off the Florida Panhandle.
She had been visiting the area on a mother-daughter trip and said she and a friend had been diving for sand dollars before the attack occurred.
“All of the sudden my best friend yelled, ‘Shark!’ and so we all started swimming for our lives,” Gribbin recalled. She said she remembered that sharks are attracted to frantic splashing and yelled for everyone to be calm. Gribbin, who was closest to the shark, was bitten.
“The shark bit off my hand first, and I raised my arm out of the water, and there was just flesh and bone there,” Gribbin said. The shark then latched onto her leg. A man punched the shark off her and strangers on the beach rushed to help. She was flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital.
Doctors were able to save the teen’s life but had to amputate part of her right leg.
In the hospital, Gribbin made a deliberate decision to choose joy and to never give up.
She initially struggled knowing “that I only have two regular limbs, and that my life would be completely different.”
“I would cry, and I would ask my mom, ‘Why is it happening to me?’ And on that day, we put a Bible verse on my bedside table that said, ‘With God, all things are possible.’ And then she told me that what you look like doesn’t define you, it’s who you are on the inside. And so, I think that stuck with me throughout my whole recovery the past two years.
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“It doesn’t matter what I look like, as long as I’m spreading positivity and inspiring others to stay strong and to never give up,” she said.
Gribbin was fitted with prosthetic limbs, quickly regained her ability to walk, returned to sports and got her driver’s license. She has gone back in the water and learned to surf, meeting Bethany Hamilton, a professional surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack.
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, the Alabama Republican who sponsored the measure, said the legislation happened because of the teen’s “courage, perseverance, and advocacy to protect future beachgoers.”
“Because of her strength, lives will be changed. We should all be inspired by her,” Britt said.
Shark bites are uncommon, expert points out
While sharks are commonly found in the waters off the United States, shark bites are rare, said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark research program.
There are between 60 to 80 known unprovoked bites worldwide each year, he said. It’s extremely rare that two or more people are bitten in close proximity. He said in a database of known shark bites, called the International Shark Attack File, there have only been a few instances of multiple bites in a single day.
When that happens, he said it’s likely because of environmental conditions such as sharks following schools of bait fish closer to the shore. Murky water conditions can also be a factor because they increase the chance that a shark will mistake a person for a fish or seal.
In the area where Gribbin was bitten, there are about 20 to 30 bull sharks offshore at all times, Naylor said. Great white sharks have been spotted more frequently in the chilly waters of New England and Atlantic Canada, according to conservation groups. A smartphone app called Sharktivity also enables shark spotters to report their sightings.
The sightings might unnerve people, but Naylor said it’s important to remember that shark attacks are rare.
“If sharks wanted to eat people, we’d have about 10,000 bites a day. The fact that we have so few is basically testament to the fact that the sharks are doing their level best to avoid people, not to target them,” Naylor said.
Gribbin said she would rather people have the opportunity to get information and make decisions about protecting themselves than to go into the water without knowing.
Braxton Rocha, who was bitten by a large tiger shark off the north shore of the Big Island of Hawaii, said he liked the idea of an alert system. He thinks it is information that people, particularly tourists to the island, will want to know.
Rocha was spearfishing in 2015 when he saw the large shark. “Looked like a bus or submarine. She was the biggest thing I’d seen in the ocean at that time,” Rocha said. He started making his way to shore. When he looked back to check where the shark was, the animal was right in front of him. He tried to push the shark away, but the animal was too big and powerful. It latched onto his leg. Rocha punched it in the nose and the shark let go and swam away.
“Everything happened so fast. It was almost like being struck by lightning. I was still kind of out of it. I looked down and see giant clouds of blood just bursting out of my leg,” he said.
It took nearly 100 staples to repair the gaping wound on his leg. But the experience did not dampen Rocha’s enthusiasm for the ocean and wildlife. “I’ve always loved sharks,” Rocha said.
