Just over a year after she lost her foot and part of her leg during a shark attack while on vacation, Ali Truwit was cheered on by a massive crowd on Boston Post Road in Darien, as she left for the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.

"I cannot believe this many people just showed up," Truwit said as she looked around her.

Truwit was celebrating her graduation from Yale University with a trip to Turks and Caicos in May of 2023 when the attack happened. Family members tell News 12 at this time last year, she was still in so much pain that she was having trouble sleeping at night, and had just started learning how to walk again with a prosthetic.

"I never imagined this is where I would be right now," she says.

Truwit, who was a Division I college swimmer at Yale, eventually worked up the courage to get back in the water, saying that "it takes a lot to come back after a life-changing trauma."

She started by swimming in her backyard pool, and then competitively again. In June, she qualified for the Paralympic Games.

Even people in her hometown who had never met her before, like Kelli Kole noticed.

"I just think it's great that we're supporting someone so young and who's overcome such great challenges in a year's time, it's pretty cool," says Kole.

That includes younger members of the Darien community, including Ryan Thurlow and some of his teammates from the high school's hockey team, who joined the crowd.

"Most people would give up after something like that," said Thurlow. "The fact that she's coming out and going to the Paralympics is just amazing."

Even the people who know Truwit the best admit they're in awe.

"This is remarkable because this is a mixture of pain, and loss and trauma and what matters to her now is having something good come from it," says her father, Mitch.

Her lifelong friend, Caroline Strom, says she has also witnessed that mindset firsthand.

"She has really inspired a lot of people, including myself, to...have a new perspective on certain things," she says.

Truwit's friends and family all describe her as shy, and as she starts to realize just how many people she's inspired/

"It is such an honor, and it touches me beyond belief to think that this many people are here supporting me. It truly is what carried me through this year and has made this achievement possible," says Truwit. "I hope everyone realizes that they're stronger than they think, and they have more in them than they might think they do."

Truwit is flying to Germany first, where she'll spend two weeks training and adjusting to the time difference.

After that, she is competing in three events in Paris: the 100-meter and 400-meter freestyle and the 100-meter backstroke. Her first race in on Sunday, Sept. 1.