A mom has opened up about the gut-wrenching moment she saw her daughter mauled by a shark during a vacation.
Lulu Gribbin, from Mountain Brook, Alabama, was left severely injured after being attacked by a shark on Rosemary Beach in Florida’s Walton County, as reported by The Guardian.
A 17-year-old named McCray Faustt was also bitten on the foot and a Virginia woman named Elisabeth Foley, 45, lost part of her left hand, according to WDHN.
The 15-year-old's mother, Ann Blair Gribbin, provided details about the savage incident, the aftermath, and her daughter's medical condition in a heartwrenching post on the website CaringBridge.
Ann said that she and Lulu were on their first mother-daughter vacation along with the teen’s twin sister, Ellie, as well as friends.
She revealed that her daughter was with friends on a sand bar in the sea, looking for sand dollars, when the vicious predator bit her hand and leg on Friday afternoon (June 7).
Two onlookers, a man and a boy, noticed the teenager was badly injured so they pulled her out of the water and carried her to the shore.
The heartbroken mom was at another part of the beach when she heard there was a shark and saw a group of people standing over someone on the shore. She rushed over and found out that her daughter was a victim of the attack.
“I saw her wounds on her leg and started to scream,” the mom penned. “She was lifeless her eyes closed mouth white and pale.
"The wound on her leg or all that was left of her leg was something out of a movie. I finally made it back to her and held her hand and she saw me, and I told her I was there," she added.
Lulu was airlifted to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, and doctors were forced to amputate her right leg halfway up from her knee to her hip. She had also lost around two-thirds of the blood in her body.
Ann disclosed that medics expected her child to be on the ventilator for about a week but Lulu began breathing on her own on Saturday and was removed from the machine.
“This was a first big step,” the mom wrote. “Once she was settled her first words to us were, ‘I made it.’ And boy she did.”
South Walton Fire District Chief Ryan Crawford revealed that the other victim, Foley, was also airlifted to a hospital after suffering "significant trauma to the midsection, the pelvic area, as well as amputation of her left lower arm," per The Mirror.
Officials believe the same shark attacked the two teenagers and the 45-year-old woman.
The mom has expressed gratitude to first responders and hospital staff for providing lifesaving care to her beloved teen.
“At this point, we will have multiple surgeries in the days to come and our lives will be forever changed. Lulu is strong, beautiful, brave and so many more things I can’t count. God has a plan for her, and we will be there to support her every way we can,” she wrote.
Lulu is expected to undergo several surgeries in the following weeks as she continues to recover physically from the life-changing attack.
We wish all the victims a speedy recovery.
.jpg_6XUjwB?tr=h-40)
.jpg_C5JMm5?tr=h-184)