Bethany Meilani Hamilton career , biography , history , birthday

 Survivor of a shark attack in 2003 in which her left arm was bit off, Bethany Meilani Hamilton (born February 8, 1990) is an American professional surfer and writer who later resumed her competitive surfing career. In her 2004 autobiography Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to go Back on the Board, which was transformed into the 2011 motion picture Soul Surfer, she discussed her ordeal and credited her Christian faith with giving her the fortitude to go through it. Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable, a 2018 documentary on Hamilton that covers her marriage to Adam Dirks and how being a mother has impacted her professional surfing career, was also about Hamilton.

early years

Tom and Cheri Hamilton welcomed Hamilton into the world in Lihue, Hawaii on February 8, 1990.[2] Noah and Timothy are her two older brothers. Hamilton started surfing at the age of three, took up the sport competitively at the age of eight, and secured her first sponsorship at the age of ten. While her father worked as a waiter at a local café, Hamilton's mother, a homemaker, taught her at home from sixth grade through high school.

Attack by a shark and recovery

On October 31, 2003, Hamilton, then 13 years old, went surfing with her best friend Alana Blanchard, her father, and Alana's brother in shark-infested seas off Tunnels Beach in Kauai. During their conversation, Hamilton was resting stomach-down on her surfboard when she was attacked by a tiger shark measuring 14 feet (4.3 meters) long.[4] She had been dangling her left arm just below the shoulder when it quickly bit it off. The Blanchards assisted Hamilton in paddling back to shore after which Alana's father made a tourniquet out of a rash guard and bound it around the arm's stump. Wilcox Memorial Hospital was rushed to receive Hamilton. She was in hypovolemic shock and had lost more than 60% of her blood by the time she got there. She took his position in the operating room with the same surgeon even though Hamilton's father, who was due to have knee surgery that morning, was already there. Hamilton acknowledged in later interviews with the media that she felt normal before being bitten and that the bite did not cause her to experience much pain, but that she felt numb on the way to the hospital.[Reference needed]

Surfing at Hamilton in March 2007

A family of fishermen lead by Ralph Young showed investigators images of a 14-foot (4.3 m) long (tiger shark) they had captured and killed about one mile from the attack location when word of the shark attack first surfaced. Its mouth included pieces of a surfboard. Hamilton's broken board and the measurement of its mouth were found to coincide. The police formally confirmed that it was the same person who had attacked her in late 2004.[Reference needed]

Hamilton was resolved to return to surfing despite the trauma of the event and did so a month later.

Hamilton started using a specially designed board that was longer and a little thicker than usual and included a handle for her right arm, making it easier to paddle. She also learned to kick more to compensate for the loss of her left arm. Just 26 days after the incident, on November 26, 2003, Hamilton returned to surfing and taught herself how to surf with one arm. On January 10, 2004, she joined her first significant competition. She currently rides normal performance short boards for competition.[7]The swimsuit she was wearing during the assault, a gift from ocean photographer Aaron Chang, is on display at the California Surf Museum in Oceanside, California. There is also the shark-bit surfboard that she was riding at the time of the attack.