Woman Relives Shark Attack on South Padre Island – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Nowadays, Tabatha Sullivent's life looks a little different.

She may be moving slower, but she is grateful to be moving at all, especially in her home Celina, after seven weeks of absence.

“I think for people who have been in the hospital and been in bed and been on bed rest, it’s not possible to master a bedpan. And going through that and being on bed rest and not being able to get up and do things for yourself was a difficult time,” Sullivent said through tears.

On July 4, Sullivent was traveling to South Padre with family and friends, celebrating a birthday, a graduation, an engagement, and an anniversary when their last day at the beach went horribly wrong.

Cell phone video captured strangers gathering around Sullivent after she was pulled from the water following a shark attack. She was bleeding profusely and her left calf was missing.

“All I heard was grab a rope. Grab a belt. You know, everybody was trying to figure out what to grab to stop the bleeding,” she said.

First responders rushed Sullivent to a hospital in Brownsville. She was flown to another facility in Edinburg that same day, she said.

The days that followed were a monotony of hospital procedures. During a seven-week stay in South Texas, Sullivent fought off infections, underwent a skin graft, and slowly fought his way back to standing on two legs.

She came home again this week.

She says she can take a limited number of steps because she uses a walker to get around.

“Right now I have no feeling in the bottom of my foot. I have no feeling in my ankle. I have very little movement. Circulation, we're still waiting for my body to figure out, hey, my calf's not there. We're going to have to find another way to circulate,” Sullivent said.

She hopes to soon be able to start a new round of rehabilitation, in which she will be able to walk without assistance again.

Sullivent will always carry the scars, as will her husband Cary, who was injured trying to save her that day.

“He saw me from the beach, and he saw the blood in the waves. And that was the first thing he saw… He just saw blood in the waves, and he automatically ran across the water, so he was the first one to grab me and pull me to shore,” she said. “I mean, who fights a shark for you?”

It is a bond that has now grown stronger, as with so many bonds in Sullivent's life.

“You have your family. You have your friends, you know they want to help you, let them help,” she said.

Friends raised more than $28,000 to help with the family's medical expenses. Celina Junk Removal built a ramp to their home before Sullivent returned this week.

As she moves forward, Sullivent also finds strength in sharing her story.

“For me, it's liberating to talk about it. It's almost like therapy. When I talk about it and remember it, I can let it go and get it out,” Sullivent said.