Haven Shepherd
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| Personal information | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | Do Thi Thuy Phuong March 10, 2003 Quảng Nam province, Vietnam | |||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||
| Classifications | S8 | |||||||||||
Medal record
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Haven Shepherd (born March 10, 2003) is a Vietnamese-American Paralympic swimmer.[1][2] In 2018, she was included on the BBC 100 Women list.[3]
Shepherd was born Do Thi Thuy Phuong in Quang Nam province, Vietnam after her parents had an affair.[4][5][2] When she was 14 months old, her parents died in a bomb explosion, either as a double suicide or as a murder-suicide perpetuated by her father.[4][5] Although Shepherd was also intended to die in the explosion, she was instead blown 40 feet away and only sustained damage to her legs.[6][7] An older half-sister also survived the explosion.[4][5] Shepherd was brought by her grandmother to a hospital in Da Nang, where both her legs were amputated.[4][5] At age 20 months, she was adopted by an American couple from Carthage, Missouri, who had six older children.[5][6]
Shepherd learned to swim by age 3.[6] She was homeschooled.[1]