Ung inspirationskälla

Läs om den här surfartjejen som fick sin arm avbiten av en haj när hon var 13 år, och som snart återvände till surfandet, med en otroligt positiv attityd...

Nu hjälper hon andra som har drabbats av liknande händelser att komma över rädslan - barn som var utsatta för tsunamin t.ex.

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"On Oct. 31, 2003, the water was glassy and calm at Hamilton's favorite surf spot, known as "The Tunnels," when her life changed forever.

"I was laying on my board sideways. And then...the shark came up and grabbed a hold of my arm," she told "20/20."

"And then, I was holding onto my board, with my thumb, because I probably didn't want to get pulled under. It was like pulling me back and forth, not like pulling me underwater. Just like, you know how you eat a piece of steak?... It was kind of like that. And then it let go. And then went under. Then I looked down at the water, and it was like really red, from all the blood in the water."

It happened so quickly that none of the surfers around her ever saw the creature or her struggle with it. But, the attack severed her left arm just below the shoulder.

"I think I figured out that if I panicked, then things wouldn't go as good as if I was calm," she said.

"I was praying to God to rescue me and help me," Hamilton said. "And then, I had this one pretty funny thought, I think. I was thinking, 'I wonder if I'm going to lose my sponsor.'"

The shark took a 16-inch bite out of her board and Hamilton nearly died from blood loss.

"When I first saw her in the hospital that morning she looked really pale but she had a brightness in her eyes that I could just say, 'You know, she's going to be alright,'" Bethany's mother, Sherry Hamilton told ESPN.

Local fisherman Ralph Young was determined to catch the creature. He laid a trap about 50 feet off the reef, where Hamilton was surfing and caught a 14-foot-long tiger shark. Close to 1,400 pounds, Young was sure he'd captured the shark that attacked Bethany.

"When we took the outline of the bite in the board and compared it to the jaw, it fit perfectly," Young said.

Hamilton has drawn as much admiration from her community after the attack as she had before.

"I guess since I handled the situation so well, that people have taken me as a role model, but I don't like feel like one," she said.

Friends and family say Hamilton's grit and spirit aren't qualities she's acquired since her accident, but have always been there. Her father, Tom Hamilton, says she never had a "pity party" over losing her arm in the attack.

Instead, just a month after a shark took her left arm, her passion brought her back into the water. "I was just stoked to be riding the wave. After that I just had like tears of joy paddling back out," she said.

But, when she first returned to surfing, the champion had to re-learn a sport that had become second nature. "Just learning with one arm and adapting to not having two there," Hamilton said."

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