Former NBA player Danilo Gallinari’s wife, Eleonora Boi, recounted the harrowing shark attack she experienced while at a beach in Puerto Rico.
People around the world were in shock when they heard the news that the wife of former NBA player Danilo Gallinari had been bitten by a shark in Puerto Rico.
Danilo Gallinari
Danilo Gallinari
Position: PF, SF
Age: 36
Height: 208 cm
Weight: 102 kg
Birth place: Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, Italy
Shark attacks are rare, with fewer than 100 incidents reported globally each year. Yet, it happened to the wife of the former NBA star.
Eleonora Boi, Gallinari's wife, recalled the terrifying moment in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, saying she initially thought it was just a jellyfish sting — but it turned out to be far worse.
"When it all happened, I was practically at the shoreline with my husband and the kids — it’s impossible to go far with them and a baby bump! Suddenly I felt this intense burning on my thigh and, being Sardinian and used to the sea, I thought it was a jellyfish," Eleonora Boi recalled.
"I touched the spot and felt something soft, and I started screaming. I ran out of the water, my husband grabbed the kids and followed me."
"I looked at my leg and saw red and orange — I kept thinking it was a jellyfish, but it wasn’t… It was my own chewed-up skin starting to peel off. A horrible sight," she said.
Although many people rushed to help her, Boi said she also has haunting memories from that chaotic moment.
"I still have the image in my head of a woman pointing her phone at me to record a video of the scene. How can someone do that?" she said.
"You see a pregnant woman covered in blood and your first instinct is to grab your phone and film her like it’s some kind of circus? It’s abhorrent. Fortunately, many others were far more intelligent and, above all, human — they helped me. But that moment was just horrible."
At the hospital, Boi became something of a local phenomenon — doctors there had never seen a shark attack before.
"Staff who’ve worked here for 30 years told me they’d never seen anything like it before. Because shark attacks just don’t happen there," she said.
Boi also mentioned that her husband, Danilo Gallinari, has stayed by her side throughout the ordeal — though she is now urging him to return to the court, as his team is competing in the Puerto Rico league finals.
"Anyway, Danilo has been right by my side. He immediately tried to be strong and supportive."
Credit Vaqueros de Bayamón
"But the trauma was huge for him too, and now I’m the one practically forcing him to go back and play because the finals are starting, and I want him to focus on that and for us to move on from this incident as quickly as possible," she said.
"But for now, he’s decided to dedicate these days entirely to me. He should return to training on Monday."
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