Diana Nyad: Swim from Cuba to Florida cut short by jellyfish and lightening

Diana Nyad's third attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida ended this morning at 7:42 a.m., according to the Associated Press.

She was in the water 60 hours before a lightening storm and multiple jellyfish stings forced her to concede.

"Instead of getting hit with one doozy they got hit with three," Nyad's teammate, Vanessa Linsley, told the Atlantic Journal-Constitution. "They got hit with the weather, they got hit with the jellyfish and they got hit with the sharks all at the same time."

Steve Munatones, an official observer, told Good Morning America, "We pulled her out of the water. The dangers were so great that we couldn't risk anyone's life, including her own."

Nyad, who turns 63 tomorrow, swam about 61 miles, half the full distance from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida.

"It's a cross between being down, being so tired because everyone wanted this so much, and a huge sense of accomplishment," said Nyad's chief of operations Mark Sollinger, according toCNN. "Nobody in the world would even attempt this, but we did. That's huge."

Nyad told CNN she hoped her swim would help encourage people her age to take chances and fulfill their dreams.

"When I walk up on that shore in Florida, I want millions of those AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) sisters and brothers to look at me and say, 'I'm going to go write that novel I thought it was too late to do. I'm going to go work in Africa on that farm that those people need help at. I'm going to adopt a child. It's not too late, I can still live my dreams.'"