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Bethany Hamilton Biography
Bethany Hamilton born Bethany Meilani Hamilton is an American professional surfer. She survived a 2003 shark attack in which her left arm was bitten but she ultimately returned to surfing and was victorious in professional surfing.
Hamilton wrote about her experience in the 2004 autobiography Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board. The feature film Soul Surfer was released in April 2011.
Bethany was home-schooled from 6th grade through high school.
Bethany Hamilton Age
Hamilton was born on February 8, 1990 in Lihue, Hawaii, U.S. She is 33 years
Bethany Hamilton Family
She was born the youngest child to Thomas R Hamilton and Cherilyn Hamilton. She was raised in a surfing family along with her siblings.
Bethany Hamilton Siblings
Hamilton has two older brothers Noah Hamilton and Timothy Hamilton.
Bethany Hamilton Husband | Bethany Hamilton And Adam Dirks
Bethany met Adam Dirks a youth minister through mutual friends in early 2012. They got engaged in April 2013. On August 18, 2013, the couple got married in front of 300 friends and family members at a secluded 130-acre estate on Kauai’s north shore, near where she grew up.
Bethany Hamilton Kids | Bethany Hamilton Children |
Bethany Hamilton Son
Meilani and her husband Adam have two sons together, Tobias born 2015 and Wesley born March 2018.
Bethany Hamilton Surfing
Bethany’s whole family loved surfing and her parents began teaching her how to surf even before she turned five. She loved surfing and she became very fascinated with the sport early on.
She participated in her first real Surf Competition: Rell Sunn Menehune Surfing Championships on Oahu, Hawaii in 1998 and won both the short and long board divisions.
Having the motivation from her first competitive success, she was raring to become a professional competitive surfer.
When she was just nine years old, Bethany received her first major surf sponsorships from Rip Curl and Tim Carroll Surfboards. Over the next couple of years, she consistently moved up the rankings in Amateur surfing competitions by winning several events.
Bethany Hamilton Shark
On October 31, 2003, Bethany, aged 14 at the time, went for a morning surf along Tunnels Beach, Kauai, alongside her best friend Alana Blanchard, Alana’s father, Holt, and her brother Byron. It was around 7:30 a.m. with numerous turtles in the area.
Hamilton was lying on her surfboard with her left arm swinging loosely in the water, when a 14-foot-long (4.3 m) tiger shark attacked her, cleaving her left arm just below the shoulder.
The Blanchards helped paddle her back to shore, then Holt, Alana’s father fashioned a tourniquet out of a rash guard and wrapped it around the stump of her severed arm.
Hamilton was rushed to Wilcox Memorial Hospital. By the time she arrived there, she had lost over 60% of her blood and was in hypovolemic shock.
A doctor who was living in a hotel nearby raced to the rescue. Her father was scheduled to have knee surgery that same morning and was already there, but Bethany took his place in the operating room.
She spent 3 weeks in recovery before being discharged. During later media interviews, Hamilton confirmed that she felt normal when she was bitten and did not feel much pain from the bite at the moment of the incident, but later felt numb on the way to the hospital.
Despite the trauma of the disaster, Bethany was still determined to return to surfing. One month after the attack, she strongly returned to her board.
At first, she adopted a custom-made board that was longer and slightly thicker than standard and also had a handle for her right arm. This made it easier to paddle, and she also learnt to kick more to make up for the loss of her left arm.
She entered a major competition on January 10, 2004 after teaching herself to surf with one arm. Hamilton now uses standard competitive performance short-boards.
The shark-bitten surfboard that Bethany was riding during the attack, as well as the bathing suit she was wearing at the time of the incident, a gift from ocean photographer Aaron Chang, are both on display at the California Surf Museum in Oceanside, California.
Bethany Hamilton Best Friend | Bethany Hamilton Friend
Hamilton’s best friend is Alana Blanchard who is also a surfer and model. Alana, her father and brother Byron were present when Bethany suffered the shark attack.
Bethany Hamilton Shark Caught | Bethany Hamilton Tiger Shark
When news broke out of the shark attack, a fishermen family led by Ralph Young presented to investigators photos of a 14-foot-long (4.3 m) tiger shark they had caught and killed it about one mile from the attack site.
It also had surfboard debris in its mouth. When measurements the sharks mouth were compared with those of Bethany’s broken board, it matched. The police officially confirmed that it was the same one that attacked her in late 2004.
Bethany Hamilton Media
Since the attack, Bethany has appeared as a guest on numerous television shows. She has appeared on television shows which include The Biggest Loser, 20/20, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Today Show, and The Tonight Show. She has also appeared in magazines such as People, Time, and American Girl. Additionally, Bethany was the cover story in the premier issue of nine magazine.
She won the ESPY Award for Best Comeback Athlete and also received the Courage Teen Choice Award in 2004.
Bethany Hamilton Story | Bethany Hamilton Book
In 2004, MTV Books published Bethany’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 what she went through.
Bethany Hamilton Documentary
Hamilton’s story is also told in the 2007 short subject documentary film Heart of a Soul Surfer, which is directed by Becky Baumgartner.
Described as a “faith-based documentary,” it addresses her devout Christianity and the courage and faith in Jesus Christ in the aftermath of the shark attack, and also follows her quest for spiritual meaning.
Bethany Hamilton Movie | Soul Surfer Bethany Hamilton
Hamilton’s manager, Roy “Dutch” Hofstetter, who went on to produce the film Soul Surfer, managed Bethany rise through the media from shark attack victim to inspirational role model.
A feature film Soul Surfer, based on her 2004 book, was released in theaters on April 8, 2011. Bethany was portrayed by actress Anna Sophia Robb. Bethany herself performed all the one-armed surfing stunts in it. Soul Surfer was released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 2, 2011.
Bethany appeared on the TLC series 19 Kids and Counting, in the episode titled “Duggars Under the Sea,” when the Duggar family visited her, in Atlanta, Georgia on October 11,2011.
Bethany Hamilton Now | Bethany Hamilton Today
Hamilton is involved in numerous charitable efforts, including her own foundation, Friends of Bethany. The foundation reaches out to amputees and youth, encouraging a broken world by offering them hope to overcome through Jesus Christ.
Bethany uses her platform as a professional athlete to promote living a fit and healthy lifestyle, she authored the book BODY AND SOUL (ISBN 9780310731054) in 2014.
Her latest project, BETHANY HAMILTON: UNSTOPPABLE, is a surf documentary which will showcase her as one of the best women surfers in the world.
She is set to release it in 2018, accompanied by a photo book (ISBN 978-0310764854) and also a children’s book (ISBN 978-0310764977).
Bethany Hamilton Quotes
- Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That’s what little girls are made of. Bethany Hamilton
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Bethany Hamilton Perfume
Stoked 6.8oz Body Lotion and 1.7oz Perfume Set by Bethany Hamilton Ride the waves with the newest Bethany Hamilton Stoked Gift Set.
A whisper of tropical orchids, lotus blossom, pink maguet and jasmine calm the senses while sandalwood, creamy coconut, and musk leave a fragrant finish.
Packaged in mini surfboard shaped bottles, it’s a refreshing reminder of a day at the beach. This set includes a 6.8oz body lotion and 1.7oz spray perfume.
Bethany Hamilton Height
Hamilton stands at a height of 1.8m.
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