Cheri Hamilton had no doubt her only daughter would grow up to
become a professional surfer. At age 4 Bethany was riding waves off
the beaches of her home in Kauai. By the time she was 8 she was
competing in surfing contests. Taking on gigantic waves was
Bethany's specialty, and her parents, both surfers, would encourage
her. "We'd tell her, 'You can win this because you're strong. The
other kids are going to run away from the big surf,'" recalls
Cheri. And sure enough, Bethany, who squealed with delight when she
caught a wave, would take home the trophy.
But eight years ago Bethany's dream of surfing greatness nearly
came to an end after she was attacked by a 14-foot tiger shark that
tore off her left arm. That headline-making tragedy, and her
astonishing path to recovery, is the subject of a new movie,
Soul Surfer, starring AnnaSophia Robb (as Bethany) and
Helen Hunt (as Cheri).
Today, sitting with her mother in a Santa Monica hotel lounge,
Bethany, 21, looks every bit the Hawaiian beach girl, dressed in
cutoffs, a Rip Curl jean jacket and bare feet. She smiles and
laughs easily but becomes soft-spoken when she recounts the events
of that horrible day. Bethany and some friends had gone to Tunnels
Beach, one of her favorite surfing spots off Kauai's North Shore.
She was lying on her surfboard when she suddenly felt pressure on
her arm and then a back-and-forth tugging -- "you know, like how
you eat a piece of steak," she says -- before noticing that the
turquoise water around her was quickly turning red from her own
blood. "I just had a sense of peace throughout it all," says
Bethany, whose friends fashioned a tourniquet from a surfboard
leash once they paddled her to shore. "I think that was one of the
key factors that helped me -- if I had panicked I would have lost
more blood."
When Cheri finally saw her daughter at the local hospital, "I
was just thankful she was alive," she says. "That was my whole
focus -- we'll deal with whatever we have to deal with, but at
least she's alive." Bethany's left arm was now a small knob of skin
held together with stitches. As the wound healed her focus returned
to the water. Not only would she continue to ride waves, but she
also decided she would retrain herself. "To me it was like never
getting in a car again because you're afraid of having another
collision," Bethany says. "Not surfing just didn't work for me."
About a month after the attack, around the time her doctor gave her
the go-ahead to surf, Bethany stood up on a board as her mother,
her father, Tom, and her two older brothers, Noah and Timmy,
cheered her on.
In Soul Surfer, it's clear how much Bethany's family
played a part in her comeback success. One scene shows her brothers
helping her rebuild her strength through vigorous weight training
and long runs on the beach. Another has her father (played by
Dennis Quaid) installing a handle on the upper end of her board so
she could catch her balance. "Our goal was to help her be at the
top of her game," says Cheri, who nevertheless had reservations
about her daughter's return to competitive surfing. Cheri knew
surfing is traditionally a two-armed sport: You need both arms to
paddle, grab the sides of the board and raise yourself from a prone
position. Instead of cheering her on, she wondered, should they be
encouraging her to slow down? "I wasn't sure she should do
contests. At one point I told her, 'Just go and support your
friends,'" says Cheri. "I didn't want to set her up for
failure."
Cheri couldn't bring herself to go with Bethany to her first
comeback competition on Hawaii's Big Island two months after the
attack ("too painful," she says, wincing). But when her daughter
returned home with fifth place, she shifted gears. "If you can get
fifth place, you can get fourth place," Cheri told her. Six months
later Bethany won her division in a bigger contest in Waikiki. At
the time of her attack she was considered an amateur with signs of
promise. Today she is ranked among the top 25 female surfers in the
world.
There have been moments when Bethany and her mother are haunted
by that October 2003 morning. Out on the water, Bethany might
think, Was that a shark in the distance? Will it happen again? But
"I hardly ever get worried," she says, and she has ways of calming
herself down. "I'll pray," she says, "or I'll sing a song, like,
'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' or 'Somewhere Over the
Rainbow.'"
Cheri struggles with post-traumatic stress. "If I'm sleeping and
I hear a noise, I'll wake up and feel adrenaline running through my
body," she says. "It's diminished over the years, but it still
happens."
Mostly, though, Bethany uses her story to inspire people. She
gives motivational talks and, through her nonprofit foundation,
Friends of Bethany, she works with other amputees and shark-attack
survivors. "I met one boy in Australia who was born with no limbs
and I took him surfing with me," she says. "We all have different
challenges, but his attitude was so positive it was infectious."
The rest of the time she's traveling around the world, catching
waves -- and trophies -- on the competitive surfing circuit.
"People ask me if I'm excited about the movie," says Bethany, who
was on the Oahu set with her family and did most of the one-armed
surfing scenes in the film. "I am. It's a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity. But I'm way more excited about surfing. Surfing is
what I do."