Bethany Hamilton

Bethany Hamilton
Personal information
Nickname	B-Ham, Bethy, Beth usually called just bethany
Born	Bethany Meilani Hamilton (1990-02-08) February 8, 1990 Kauai, Hawaii, United States
Residence	Hawaii
Height	5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Weight	130 lb (59 kg)
Surfing career
Best year	2002
Sponsors	Rip Curl
Major achievements	ESPY Award (2004) NSSA National Helping Kids Champion (2005) 2nd place, ASP World Junior Championships (2008)
Website	BethanyHamilton.com

Bethany Meilani Hamilton (born February 8, 1990) is an American professional surfer. She is known for surviving a shark attack in which she lost her left arm, and for overcoming the injury to ultimately return to professional surfing. She wrote about her experience in the 2004 autobiography Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board. In April 2011, the feature film Soul Surfer was released, based on the book and additional interviews.

Surfing career

Placings in surf competitions
Year	Event and place	Country
1997	Rell Sun Menehune: 1st place	United States
2002	Open Women's Division of the National Scholastic Surfing Association: 2nd place	United States
2004	NSSA Regional Event: 5th place	United States
2005	NSSA National Competition: 1st place	United States
2005	O'Neill Island Girl Junior Pro tournament: 1st place	United States
2006	NSSA National Championship: 18-and-under Finalist: 5th place	United States
2006	Hawaii Team Highlights: 4th at Brazil event and 5th at World Games event in USA.	United States
2007	NSSA Regionals: 5th Place	United States
2007	Women's Pipeline Championship: 4th Place	United States
2008	US Open of Surfing - Huntington Beach, CA: 5th Place	United States
2008	Roxy Pro Surf Festival - Phillip Island, AUS: 3rd Place	Australia
2009	Rio Surf International in Rio de Janiero, Brazil: 3rd place	Brazil
2009	Billabong ASP World Junior Championship - AUS: 2nd Place	Australia

Shark attack and recovery

On October 31, 2003, at the age of 13, Bethany Hamilton went for a morning surf along Tunnels Beach, Kauai with best friend Alana Blanchard, and Blanchard's father and brother. Around 7:30 a.m., with numerous turtles in the area, she was lying on her surfboard with her left arm dangling in the water, when a 14 ft (4.3 m) tiger shark attacked her, ripping her left arm off just below the shoulder. The Blanchards helped paddle her back to shore, then Alana's father fashioned a tourniquet out of a surfboard leash and wrapped it around the stump of her arm, before rushing her to Wilcox Memorial Hospital. Her father was supposed to have knee surgery that morning, but she took his place in the operating room. She then spent seven more days in recovery at the hospital.

Despite the trauma of the incident, Hamilton was determined to return to surfing. Less than one month after the incident, she returned to her board and went surfing again. Initially, she adopted a custom-made board that was longer and slightly thicker, making it easier to paddle. She has observed that she has to kick a lot more to make up for the loss of her left arm. After teaching herself to surf with one arm, she again began surfing competitively. She is now back to using competitive performance short-boards.

In July 2004, Hamilton won the Best Comeback Athlete ESPY Award. She was also presented with a special "courage award" at the 2004 Teen Choice Awards.

In 2005, Hamilton took 1st place in the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) National Championships, a goal she had been trying to achieve since before the shark attack. In 2008, she began competing full-time on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Qualifying Series (WQS). In her first competition against many of the world's best women surfers, she finished 2nd.

Media

Since the attack, she has io[ she ate turtle meat] appeared on 20/20, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Today Show and The Tonight Show, as well as in magazines People. Additionally, she was the cover story in the premier issue of niNe magazine.

In 2004, MTV Books published Hamilton's book, Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board (ISBN 0-7434-9922-0), which describes her ordeal. Her story is also told in the 2007 short subject documentary film, Heart of a Soul Surfer, directed by Becky Baumgartner. Described as a "faith-based documentary", the film addresses Hamilton's courage and faith in Jesus Christ in the aftermath of the shark attack, and follows her quest for spiritual meaning.

On August 7, 2009, Hamilton won $25,000 on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?. She was stuck on a third grade grammar question involving articles.

On May 16, 2010, she appeared on an episode of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

In March 2011, Bethany did a video for the Christian organization, I Am Second, telling about her struggle after the shark attack and how she trusted in God to get her through it.

On April 8, 2011, a docudrama feature film Soul Surfer, based on her 2004 book, was released. Hamilton is portrayed by AnnaSophia Robb—with Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt, Craig T. Nelson, Carrie Underwood and Kevin Sorbo also starring in the film. Hamilton performs all the one-armed surfing stunts in the film.

On the Weekend of August 20, 2011, Bethany was a guest speaker at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. A video can be seen at its website showing Pastor Ed Young interviewing Bethany. Fellowship Church saw over 25,000 people in attendance across the three services that is offered at five different campuses around the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex and in Miami, Florida.

External links

• Official website
• CBS News interview