It’s been a long journey for Bethany Hamilton from shark attack victim to professional surfer, one she’s taken a step at a time.

Bethany was surfing with friends at dawn on Oct. 31, 2003, at the Tunnels surf break in Ha’ena when a large shark bit off most of her left arm.

Fellow surfer Holt Blanchard, her best friend’s father, used a surf leash as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding as he helped her to shore.

Bethany was back in the water surfing less than a month after the attack.

“Since the attack, when I started surfing again, I started off just having fun with it — I always have fun with surfing,” she said last week. “But I started to get better and get back to the level of competing and started competing.”

Bethany won the National Scholastic Surfing Association championship eight months after the shark attack. She reaped an ESPY award for best comeback athlete and an MTV Teen Choice Award for courage.

From there, she sampled a few pro contests in 2006, and a few more last year.

“It was kind of like just play it day by day,” Bethany said of her progress. “I wasn’t, like, pro-pro-pro-pro, like thinking pro constantly.”

“I’m just trying to do what I think God wants me to do,” said Bethany, who sees her faith as a Christian and her job as a surfer as intertwined.

“God created the heavens and the earth, and the oceans and the waves and the art of surfing and gave it to us for our enjoyment. It’s just my way of worshiping him,” she said.

Bethany is moving up in the national rankings and has won the admiration of her fellow surfers.

Read more …

(Source: Honolulu Advertiser)

Also read …

Brand Bethany keeps teen surfer, family busy

Hawaii woman builds on loss of arm