Surfer survived shark attack at age 13 to provide message of inspiration and hope

In a strange way, having her arm bitten off by a shark was a good thing.

At least that’s how Bethany Hamilton sees it now.

That fateful day was Oct. 31, 2003, in the waters off Kauai’s north shore and the 13-year-old rising star in the surf world was training with a friend and fellow competitor. As she lounged with her left arm over the side of her surfboard, a 14-foot tiger shark attacked, severing Hamilton’s arm near her shoulder and taking a crescent-shaped hunk out of her board.

She got back in the water within a month, and a year later won her first national surfing championship. In 2007, she became a professional in the sport that very nearly took her life.

Hamilton has used her story of survival and faith to become a motivational speaker, inspiring others to follow their dreams and forge a relationship with God. She is scheduled to speak Oct. 25 at two New Vintage Church services in Santa Rosa.

“I just love to encourage people to overcome, especially through their passions,” she said in a phone interview. “I get to bring it back to the things I’m passionate about … surfing and my faith, and how these two passions led me to overcome the hardest things in my life.”

Now a wife and recent mother, Hamilton said she was always resilient, but the shark attack guided her to become the strong woman she is today.

“I look back on losing my arm and I don’t really look at it as an awful horrible thing,” she said. “I look at it as something that changed my life and modeled me into the person I am today. It has opened opportunities.

“I see it as something good and all the good that has come out of it since.”

Hamilton wrote her New York Times best-selling autobiography, “Soul Surfer,” in 2004, which was turned into a 2011 film of the same name.

She has used her platform as a professional athlete to promote a healthy lifestyle, particularly for girls and young women, with the book “Body and Soul,” last year.

Hamilton also manages her own foundation, Friends of Bethany, through which she hopes to inspire amputees and young people with her religious message.

“In today’s culture it can be such a challenging age to grow up in,” she said. “I share are my faith and encourage them to find their passions and the positive things they do have in their life.”

Also this month, Hamilton is leading a retreat for young women who’ve suffered limb loss, and is speaking at an outreach program for disabled athletes.

“It’s always fun to talk with people who have differences or physical challenges,” she said. “We find a camaraderie between us and we can relate to each other on a different level, like, ‘How do you put your hair up?’ It’s fun.

“With amputee girls, we’ll work out together, show each other different things and help each other working out,” she said. “And the whole mental challenge, overcoming your differences and being thankful the life you have. All of us as human beings can be encouraged by a similar message.”

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.