June 7, 2024, started like any other summer day on Florida’s Emerald Coast. The water at Seacrest Beach was that perfect, clear turquoise that makes you forget anything dangerous could be lurking just a few feet away. Lulu Gribbin, a 15-year-old from Mountain Brook, Alabama, was out there with her twin sister Ellie and their friend McCray Faust. They were just looking for sand dollars.
Then the water turned red.
Honestly, the Lulu Gribbin shark attack is one of those stories that feels like a freak accident, but it actually sparked a massive shift in how we handle beach safety in the South. It wasn't just a random bite; it was a life-altering encounter with a bull shark that happened only 90 minutes after another woman, Elizabeth Foley, was attacked just a few miles down the coast at Watersound Beach.
The Moments That Changed Everything at Seacrest Beach
Lulu was in about waist-deep water. That’s the part that gets people. You think you’re safe if you aren't way out in the deep, but bull sharks are notorious for patrolling the shallows. When the shark hit, Lulu didn’t even feel the bite at first because of the sheer shock. She’s mentioned in interviews that she actually saw her hand was gone before the pain really registered.
She lost her left hand and her right leg was severely mangled.
The scene on the beach was chaotic. Her mother, Ann Blair Gribbin, was just coming back from lunch when she saw the crowd. She actually ran past the scene before realizing it was her own daughter lying there, "white as a ghost." If it weren't for the doctors and nurses who happened to be vacationing on that exact stretch of sand, Lulu might not have made it. They used makeshift tourniquets to stop the bleeding—Lulu had already lost about two-thirds of the blood in her body.
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Survival and the "I Made It" Moment
Lulu was life-flighted to Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola. The damage was so bad that surgeons had to amputate her left hand and her right leg, eventually taking the leg halfway between her knee and hip.
When she finally came off the ventilator, her first words were: "I made it."
That’s basically become her mantra. Since then, the recovery hasn't just been about healing; it’s been about reinventing what a "normal" life looks like for a teenager who suddenly became an amputee.
Where is Lulu Gribbin Now?
Fast forward to 2026, and Lulu isn't just surviving. She’s thriving in ways that actually make you feel a bit lazy. She’s become a face for adaptive sports, specifically golf. Within three months of the attack, she was back on the range. She uses a custom, 3D-printed attachment for her prosthetic arm that allows her to swing a club. It’s even engraved in purple, which is her favorite color.
She’s also been hanging out with some of the biggest names in the sport. You might have seen the clips of her at the Phoenix Open, where she actually drained a birdie putt for Justin Thomas and played a hole with Rickie Fowler.
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The Lulu Strong Foundation
In late 2025, she officially launched the Lulu Strong Foundation. It’s not just a "feel-good" nonprofit. The goal is pretty specific:
- Closing the tech gap: Helping other amputees get access to high-end, AI-powered prosthetics that are usually way too expensive for the average family.
- Virtual Reality Therapy: Using VR to help with "phantom limb pain," which is that weird, painful sensation where your brain thinks a limb is still there and clenched tight.
- Research: Funding ways to make prosthetics lighter and more durable.
What is Lulu’s Law?
One of the biggest frustrations following the attack was the lack of communication. If there had been a warning after the first attack that afternoon, Lulu might never have gone into the water.
That’s where Lulu’s Law comes in.
Lulu and her family pushed hard for a new alert system. Now, in Alabama’s coastal counties (and being looked at by other states), there is a protocol for Wireless Emergency Alerts—kind of like an Amber Alert—specifically for unprovoked shark attacks. If an attack happens, everyone in the vicinity gets a ping on their phone.
It sounds like a no-brainer now, but before Lulu stepped up, the system was basically just beach flags. And let's be real, most people aren't staring at the flag stand every five minutes.
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Practical Safety: What We’ve Learned
Look, the odds of a shark attack are still incredibly low. But after what happened to Lulu Gribbin, there are a few things experts and survivors suggest you actually do when you’re at the beach:
- Check your surroundings: If you see birds diving or fish jumping frantically, get out. That means something big is hunting nearby.
- Avoid "The Drop-Off": Sharks love the troughs between sandbars. Lulu was on a sandbar, but the movement between those areas is where the risk is highest.
- Ditch the jewelry: Shiny things look like fish scales to a shark.
- Stay calm: This is easier said than done, but Lulu actually credits her survival to the moment she stopped splashing and tried to swim calmly to shore. Frantic splashing signals "prey" to a bull shark.
Lulu’s story is a heavy one, but she’s handled it with a weirdly cool sense of humor. She often jokes during her public speaking gigs that while your hands can't spin 360 degrees, her prosthetic wrist sure can.
If you want to keep up with her journey or support what she’s doing, you can find her on Instagram at @lulug.strong. She posts a lot of the "real" side of recovery—the treadmill sessions, the golf swings, and the reality of navigating life as a 17-year-old advocate.
If you’re heading to the Gulf anytime soon, take a second to download a local weather or beach safety app that integrates these new alerts. Knowing is half the battle when it comes to staying safe in the water.