{"id":9881,"date":"2026-04-20T16:37:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/?p=9881"},"modified":"2026-04-20T16:37:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:37:30","slug":"lulu-gribbin-inspires-students-during-annual-helen-keller-lecture-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/2026\/04\/20\/lulu-gribbin-inspires-students-during-annual-helen-keller-lecture-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Lulu Gribbin inspires students during annual Helen Keller Lecture Series"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION<\/a>) \u2014 Alabama shark attack survivor Lulu Gribbin and her surgeons Dr. Glenn Gaston and Dr. Bryan Loeffler served as this year’s Helen Keller Lecture Series guest speakers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 15 years old, Lulu Gribbin was\u00a0just\u00a0a normal teenage girl, but a shark attack in Rosemary Beach resulted in the amputation of her left arm and right leg. Now, almost two years later, she says the only lasting damage is physical.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m still the normal Lulu that I\u2019ve always been,\u201d Gribbin said. \u201cMy life might look a little different on the outside, but I\u2019m still the same person on the inside.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to surgeons, Gaston\u00a0and Loeffler, she received a prosthetic arm and leg, and the proper training and therapy to begin walking just\u00a077 days\u00a0post-op.\u00a0She has even found a love for adaptive golf thanks to her interchangeable hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think, for anybody, it\u2019s hard to make that kind of a change,\u201d said Orthopedic Hand Surgeon, Dr. Glen Gaston. \u201cLuckily, Lulu is one of those people that is so strong and is, first of all, an incredible athlete, and second of all, about as mentally tough as anybody that I\u2019ve ever met. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHECK IT OUT: Over 12,000 food items collected during 15th Can-less Castle Contest<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you pair those two together, you can do anything.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gribbin\u2019s athletic endeavors served as inspiration for a small portion of the audience that are struggling with similar impairments. About half of the Paralympic teams from Dothan, Alabama were a part of the crowd that overfilled Claudia Crosby Theatre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see athletes every day; I\u2019ve worked with athletes for fifty years here with the program, and I know what a challenge it is, but they rise above it every day,\u201d said Barbie Nelson, a Coach and Volunteer for the Dothan Divas Gymnastics team. \u201cLife isn’t always about your disability; it\u2019s more about your ability.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a future paralympic athlete\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0enough for\u00a0Gribbin,\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0also the founder of the Lulu Strong Foundation, dedicated to advancing the field of prosthetics. In her recovery, she had the chance to use virtual reality to help develop her\u00a0brain\u2019s\u00a0connection with her prosthetic hand, but this process was not an option for the leg. Part of the mission of the Lulu Strong Foundation<\/a>\u00a0at the moment\u00a0is to focus on developing technology to help\u00a0specifically\u00a0lower-body prosthetics.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her story was also the inspiration behind Lulu\u2019s Law<\/a>, a regulatory act that enforces public warning of shark-infested waters. It has been passed in the state of\u00a0Alabama,\u00a0and Senator Katie Britt is currently working on taking it\u00a0to\u00a0national\u00a0Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never thought it would come to having a Law in my name, but it is such an honor to be able to present Lulu\u2019s Law to the state of Alabama and eventually the whole nation,\u201d Gribbin said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gribbin\u2019s first tournament in her journey to being a golfer in the 2028 Paralympics will be at the end of April. Lulu\u2019s Law is currently awaiting approval in the House of Representatives. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION) \u2014 Alabama shark attack survivor Lulu Gribbin and her surgeons Dr. Glenn Gaston and Dr. Bryan Loeffler served as this year’s Helen Keller Lecture Series guest speakers. <\/p>\n

At 15 years old, Lulu Gribbin was\u00a0just\u00a0a normal teenage girl, but a shark attack in Rosemary Beach resulted in the amputation of her left…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":9951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1127],"tags":[3011,3012,3010,3013],"topics":[],"class_list":["post-9881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","tag-helen-keller-lecture-series","tag-lulu-gribbin","tag-troy-university-helen-keller-lecture-series","tag-troy-university-lulu-gribbin"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9899,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9881\/revisions\/9899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9881"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=9881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}