Twin from Alabama remembers shark attack: “The whole ocean was red”

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (WDHN) – A central Alabama teenager is speaking out for the first time, remembering the fateful day her twin sister was attacked by a bull shark while on vacation in the Florida Panhandle.

Lulu Gribbin, 15, was one of three women attacked by what authorities believe was the same bull shark in Walton County waters on Friday. While the first two victims, an unidentified 45-year-old woman and Lulu’s boyfriend, 17-year-old McCray Faust, escaped with relatively minor injuries, Lulu lost her left hand and left leg in the attack.

On Tuesday, Lulu’s twin sister Ellie spoke out on caringbridge.org, recalling the day she will remember for the rest of her life.

The morning of the attack began like any other ordinary beach adventure.

According to Ellie, Lulu had slept in before the young girls and their friends accompanying them on the trip – McCray, Lee Lee, Adele and Lila from Mountain Brook, Alabama – walked down the road to eat breakfast and prepare for the day in the water.

“Before the event, we sunbathed, swam in the ocean, played volleyball, and just had fun,” Ellie recalled in the press release. “We borrowed a boogie board and a pink glitter flash to take to the second sandbar, as it is very far away and extremely deep. Between the first and second sandbars, we found lots of sand dollars and other animals. When we reached the second sandbar, we realized something was wrong, so we both swam down once to touch the bottom and then quickly paddled back to share the items because we were scared.”

Lulu’s twin says that after returning to shore, the girls relaxed in the summer sun before wading back into the water, where they made new friends and enjoyed the cool waves.

“After swimming with them for what felt like days, they (the new nameless friends) got out. We were all ready to get out, but decided to keep swimming and look for more sand dollars,” Ellie said.

Just before she got out of the water, Ellie heard Adele scream “Shark!” and started swimming toward the shore as fast as she could.

“Lee Lee and I were swimming for our lives. We didn’t look back. I didn’t even know if the rest of the group was following us. Suddenly I heard Lulu scream something like ‘Stay calm!’ Finally I was close to the shore, so I stood up and turned around. And my life changed forever,” Ellie said.

“Immediately, all I see is blood. The whole ocean is red, the ocean waves bring the blood closer. Then I saw my sister; she was screaming for help, and then she reached out to Lila because she was closest to her, and I could see her arm. Her arm was without a hand. It was just a limb of flesh, blood and muscle, no hand to be seen. I started crying and screaming: “That’s my sister!”

She continued, “I saw immediately that not only was her hand missing, but practically her entire leg. I could see her entire femur and there was hardly any muscle left, I don’t even think her foot was there anymore but I don’t remember. They laid her down and I just stared at her leg, but I didn’t cry, I couldn’t cry. I had to be there for Lulu. I went to Lulu as soon as she was laid down and held her hand with one hand and her head with the other so the waves wouldn’t beat against her. All I could hear was, ‘We need a tourniquet! Quick! We need a better tourniquet than this one, hurry up, hurry up.'”

Ellie says the shock of the moment left her mind blank, so she could only focus on her injured twin sister. She kept telling LuLu that “everything was going to be OK” and kept her eyes open, fearing she would die if she closed them.

Shortly after LuLu was brought ashore, her mother, Anna Blair Gribbin, arrived.

“She ran to Lulu but couldn’t do anything except look at her; she couldn’t hug her, kiss her or say anything to her. And then she saw Lulu’s leg. She let out a horrific scream that I will never forget,” Ellie wrote. “She had to be held down so the doctors could do their job. I hugged her and let her cry on my shoulders while the doctors on the beach stopped the blood flow to her leg and arm.”

Despite the chaos, Ellie says she had to stay strong for the sake of her mother and sister.

On the way to the hospital, Ellie said, the car was full of “a lot of crying,” but her grandmother comforted her on the phone.

“She told me something I’ll never forget. We were talking and the first thing I said to her was, ‘You’ll never be able to cheer us on again when we play volleyball together.'” She told me that was OK because Lulu wanted to be a doctor and she didn’t need a volleyball to do that.”

The next day, the family learned that despite the doctor’s efforts, Lulu’s leg had been amputated just above the knee during the first lengthy operation on the thigh.

“I saw her that day and we both started crying. I held her hand and she just cried. She couldn’t talk yet because she was still intubated, but that was OK. When she was extubated, we hugged and she started crying again and told me she was sorry I had to go through that; she told me how proud she was of me and how much she loved me. I told her we would get through this together and how strong and loved she was.”

The attack on the three women sent shockwaves not only through the beach community, but along the entire coast.

At midnight on Saturday, Ellie and Lila went down to the beach, sat on a towel, told stories and reflected on the recent traumatic events.

“There was a lot of fear on the beach, it was like a ghost town, no one was outside, there were no beach parties that night. Lila and I sat there and looked at the stars and then we laid down and put our heads on the towel,” Ellie continued. “I wanted to look at the spot where it happened but it was too scary so we just laid there until Lila’s mom came to pick us up because we had been out too long.”

On Monday, Lulu underwent another operation to clean the wounds and flush out bacteria, and surgeons began closing the amputations.

According to Lulu’s mother, during the successful first operation, doctors also removed the central venous catheter that leads directly to her heart.

According to her mother, Lulu, a doctor in training, wanted to watch the catheter being removed, and the nurses rolled in a large mirror so she could see how everything worked.

Despite the life-changing attack, Lulu’s family says she is in good spirits and hopeful, joking and talking to those who check on her.