Trigger Warning: This article discusses graphic content.
In June, 35-year-old Australian mum Leah Stewart headed to Coogee Beach for her routine morning swim, keeping close to the shore and safely between the flags. What began as an ordinary morning in the water would soon spiral into a fight for her life as she came face-to face with a “monster” shark.
Two months on, and Leah is revisiting the brutal attack in her first public retelling of the incident with 60 Minutes. The full interview offers Leah’s limpid account of the events that transpired, and the thought of her 18-month-old, August, that kept her fighting to survive.
Recalling the moment she came face-to-face with the shark, Leah said, “I’ve got to try and punch it, I’ve got to try and push it away, otherwise it’s going to bite my head off. In my head I thought ‘Well, which limb am I willing to lose?’ I’m right-handed, so I decided, ‘Let’s do a left hook.'”
She continued, “It grabs onto my forearm and rips away my skin, my muscle, everything. And I can just sort of see my hand with the skin there, and then there’s a big gap between my forearm and the hand.”
However, the attack wasn’t over yet.
“The next moment, I feel it grab onto my left thigh, and it rips me underwater.”
“In my head, I was like, ‘You ugly fu**er, you are not taking me away from my daughter.’ And I twisted myself around and I just started punching it over and over and over again. Just punch, punch, punch. It was like fighting a dinosaur. It was so big. It was like punching a brick wall. And I think I must have got a really good one in. And so it let me go. And in the distance…I could see Charlie.”
At this point, world champion paddleboarder Charlie Verco had signalled for the shark alarm and was waiting for his moment to rescue Leah after watching her be dragged under.
He recalled, “The shark let go of Leah and she popped back up, and I went, ‘This is my chance if I’m actually going to do something.'”
He continued, “The biggest thing for me that was scary at that point is there was so much blood in the water that I couldn’t see into it anymore. And so I didn’t like the idea of paddling straight into the middle of it and not being able to see and react to where this shark was underneath us.”
Eventually Leah managed to swim a few metres out of the “blood red” water, where Charlie was then able to paddle her back to shore.
“Thank goodness, I got the world record holder for paddling,” Leah laughed.
By chance, trauma specialist Dr. Ian Ferguson and Dr. Kassandra McGregor were on hand to help.
“She was so shut down that her veins were just completely flat,” Ferguson said.
In a move credited with saving Leah’s life, Ian drilled into the bone marrow of Stewart’s shoulders to deliver fluids, and later blood, which was raced to the scene by helicopter, before she was rushed to hospital.”
When Leah left, Ian revealed while he was “hopeful that she would survive to hospital”, he didn’t think it was a given.
Leah was rushed to St. Vincent’s Hospital in critical condition, where she spent several days in the ICU in an induced coma. She underwent a series of surgeries for her injuries including the amputation of her arm.
Surgeon Kim Isaacs recalled, “I did think that she was going to die. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”
Orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Justin Bobyn also revealed that in the operating room, they were unsure if Leah would make it.
“She was not compatible with life. Those are the words that were being shared in the operating room,” Bobyn said.
As Leah clung to life in the operating theatre, Isaacs revealed that Leah was asking for her mum.
“It was really distressing to hear it. But I also knew that she was clearly there.”
On June 23rd, a week and a half after the shark attack, Leah Stewart emerged from deep sedation. Since regaining consciousness, she has been learning to walk again while undergoing intensive rehabilitation for her injuries.
Therapist Meredith Rogers, told Leah how she has “constantly exceeded everyone’s expectations” during her recovery.
In the months since since the attack, an extraordinary outpouring of support has helped carry Leah and her family through the difficult aftermath. More than $558,000 was raised through a GoFundMe campaign.
“I want to say the biggest thank you for looking after me, for caring for my family, and for being generous enough to help my family through this. I am constantly overwhelmed at how supportive people I know, and even strangers, have been, and how much they’ve cared about my family to make such an impact on our lives,” she wrote on the fundraising page.
“I’m so happy that I’ve progressed enough to build some independence, and I can finally see some light after all of this. At this point, I think it’s appropriate for us to turn off donations on the [fundraiser] because what you’ve offered has given us enough to recover, to stay in our home, and to give us options for further medical treatment down the road.”
Leah’s attack followed multiple shark encounters along the NSW coast. In January, four shark attacks were recorded across the state in just 48 hours, including the fatal attack of 12-year-old Nico Antic, who died after suffering serious leg injuries.
The spate of attacks ignited a debate over beachgoers’ safety and shark surveillance across NSW, eventually prompting premier Chris Minns to announce increased funding for shark surveillance.
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