Eleonora Boi, the pregnant wife of former NBA star Danilo Gallinari, revealed that she’s still scared after being hospitalized following a recent shark attack in Puerto Rico.
“I have to say that I’m traumatized,” Boi said on “Good Morning America” Thursday. “I started crying and screaming, and I was screaming for help in Italian.”
Boi originally detailed the “worst day of my life” when she posted a photo of herself on Aug. 1 in what appeared to be a hospital.
The “Good Morning America” segment said Boi, a journalist, was swimming with Gallinari and their two children — a 4-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son — in “waist-deep” waters in Carolina when the attack happened.
Boi noted in her Instagram post that the beach was quite populated at the time.
“I felt a strong pain and my thigh was burning, but my idea was, ‘Maybe it’s a huge jellyfish,’” Boi recalled. “But, in reality, it wasn’t a jellyfish.”
The family fled the waters right after the attack, and a good Samaritan helped Boi.
The segment noted that an unidentified woman put pressure on her wound with a towel until others arrived to help further.
“Oh, my God, I was saying, ‘I don’t want to die,’ and ‘I want that my baby is safe,’” Boi said. “And I was crying. I was desperate, really desperate.”
Boi is quite thankful for the help the woman provided at her moment of need.
“She was an angel. Danilo was with me, and she helped so much,” Boi told the network.
“I would like to say thank you to this woman, because I don’t know her name, and I just want to say thank you to her because she helped a lot.”
Boi landed in the hospital, where she underwent hours of tests.
Since she was six months pregnant at the time, doctors had to perform several hours of tests to ensure the child — Gallinari said it’s a boy — was OK and that they could proceed to surgery.
Boi is expected to make a full recovery and has weekly visits scheduled with a doctor, per the ABC interview, but she’s still struggling with the moment.
She initially joked on Instagram about how the shark would be hearing from her legal representatives soon.
“I have to be honest, it’s not easy,” Boi said. “When I remember, I’m still scared. It’s difficult.”
Boi and Gallinari married in 2022, per People, and he spent this past season in the top basketball league in Puerto Rico following 14 seasons in the NBA, including time with the Knicks from 2009-11.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
