After barely escaping a vicious shark attack last year, an Alabama teen expressed her hope that a proposed alarm system before state lawmakers will help keep others safe in the ocean.
On June 7, 2024, three individuals were attacked by sharks during a series of attacks off the Florida Panhandle, including 16-year-old Lulu Gribbin. She lost part of her leg and her left hand. She urged lawmakers in Alabama to back a proposed shark attack alert system on Wednesday.
Republican Representative David Faulkner’s bill would create an alert system, like to the Amber Alert system, that will notify the public when an unprovoked shark attack occurs nearby.
“Ninety minutes before me, there was another shark attack a couple miles down the coast,” Gribbin stated. She claimed that she and her buddy would not have gone into the lake that day if she had been aware of the attack. “This bill will help prevent future attacks and accidents.”
The bill was advanced Wednesday by the Alabama House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee. The entire Alabama House of Representatives is now involved.
Prior to the incident, Gribbin and her friend had been diving for sand dollars. Her pal yelled, “Shark!” as they rode the waves back to the shore.
“My hand was bitten first. I remember just lifting it out of the water, and I was stunned because there was no hand there. I couldn’t feel it because of all the shock I was in. Then the shark latched onto my leg,” she remembered.
She was rescued from the ocean by a man she calls a hero. A doctor and other medical personnel who were on the beach that day hurried to save her when she fainted out and woke up on the strand.
“I remember being focused just to keep my eyes open and to breathe, to just be able to make it to the hospital,” she recalled.
Social media has tracked her protracted recuperation. People often stopped to take pictures and tell her that her tale has inspired them while she was in the Alabama Statehouse.
According to Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark research program, shark attacks are uncommon even though sharks are frequently spotted in the waters off Florida and Alabama. According to him, between 50 and 90 unprovoked bites occur annually worldwide. “It is very uncommon to have three bites in one day in close proximity,” he added.
In general, the research indicates that a shark bite does not raise the chance of another one occurring shortly, he said. But according to Naylor, the weather that day probably pushed a lot of little fish closer to the coast.
“The bait fish were very close into shore along that same beach and sharks were following them. But on any day in Alabama, you can see 20 or 30 bull sharks 400 meters offshore, but they just don’t interact with the public because they are much farther away,” Naylor stated.
According to Naylor, rip currents kill a lot more people annually than sharks do. Last year, shark attacks claimed the lives of four individuals globally. According to the U.S. Lifesaving Association, rip currents cause over 100 fatalities annually in the United States.
Faulkner believes that other states will adopt comparable systems or that federal legislation will broaden its use, even though the idea would only affect the Alabama coast.
The bill was amended to only emit an alarm in the event of an unprovoked attack off the coast, changing the name of the alert system for Gribbin.
An previous version would have permitted a shark “imminent danger” signal.
Beach communities were worried that the wording was too ambiguous and may result in too many alerts, which could cause fear and possibly harm the travel and tourism sector.
On Wednesday, Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama urged lawmakers to pass the legislation, describing the teen as “an inspiration and an awesome example of courage” and stating that it will be a “added tool” to keep people safe.
Source: NBC News
