Leah Stewart revealed that a very special interview became the key to saving her life when she came face-to-face with a shark
As she came face-to-face with the beady eyes of a four-metre great white shark, Leah Stewart was determined not to let it kill her.
“You ugly f—er, you are not taking me away from my daughter,” the 35-year-old Sydney mother recalls thinking at that moment, telling her incredible survival story for the first time in an extended interview with 60 Minutes.
Leah Stewart was determined to survive. 60 Minutes
She was determined not to be “a girl that got mauled on the beach.”
“I’m the woman that punched the shark in the face,” she said.
“I’m the woman that fought like hell to be here, to be here for August, and it was the hardest thing in the world, but I fought my way out of there.”
August is her baby daughter who she had just said goodbye to on the sand before heading into the water at Coogee Beach on June 13.
“I said goodbye and yeah, that runs through my head a lot, like that goodbye,” Leah said.
With her partner Fernando overseas, she was on the beach with her family and swimming between the flags and close to shore when the four-metre-long great white shark attacked.
“Its face was horrific,” she said.
“I’ll never forget its face. It was huge and its teeth and its mouth was massive and its eyes, it’s just black little beady eyes, we were just looking face to face.
“And it got to the point where it was about 30 centimetres from my face.”
It was the first shark attack at Coogee Beach in more than a century, and one Leah nearly did not survive.
She didn’t know if she’d be able to walk again or have the use of any limbs. Nine
In hospital her condition was so dire that she was categorised as not being compatible with life.
The shark bite took the outside muscle of Leah’s left thigh and severed her left arm so badly it needed to be amputated.
Her right hand was also shredded, causing serious nerve and tendon damage.
She didn’t know if she’d be able to walk again or have the use of any limbs, but she is back on her feet and also learning to write again.
‘This is it. This is how I die’
Coogee Beach is world-famous for a reason. The stunning stretch of sand in Sydney’s eastern suburbs is a drawcard for locals and visitors alike.
For Leah, Fernando, and August, it’s home and plays a huge part in their lives.
You’d often find Leah down in the water, whether it was a dip with her daughter, or doing laps of the bay.
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“It’s how I relax,” Leah told 60 Minutes.
“It’s how I unwind and process everything in my mind. It’s what I look forward to every day is that swim. It was my thing.”
Leah’s life was saved, in part, by brave bystanders. Nine
Although she was a fit and confident swimmer, Leah was also mindful of sharks.
“I would never swim at sunrise/sunset, only on crystal clear days. Staying really close to shore, that’s something I sort of tried to do,” she said.
“I was trying to do things right, but when you enter the water, there is risk.”
On that fateful June day, Leah was finishing up her swim and almost back to shore when someone else in the water alerted her to the danger.
“I heard a girl behind me just scream, kind of like a shrill shriek, and I turned and there was a huge, huge fin behind her, it was massive,” Leah recalled.
She began to make her bid for shore when the monster zeroed in.
“I did about four strokes and something told me stop. I stopped and I could feel movement in the water and I turned around and it was right there.”
Leah had a split-second choice to make when the shark grabbed her thigh and pulled her under.
“I don’t know how, but it’s just kind of survival kicked in and it was like it was in slow motion,” she recalled.
What Leah couldn’t see when she woke from her coma on June 23 was the extent of her injuries – but 34-year-old revealed the truth was that she already knew. Nine
“When it was holding on to my leg I had the thought, ‘This is it. This is how I die’. It was holding on to my leg and I thought, ‘This is my moment’.
“Then I just thought of August and I thought, ‘She’s not going to have a mum. She’s going to grow up without a mum’, and I couldn’t handle that.
“I didn’t want her not to have a mum, so I just thought, ‘I’ve got to fight it. I’m going to do everything I can to be here’.
“I could feel it shaking me, and somehow I managed to twist my body around, and I knew I had to punch its snout as hard as I could.
“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.”
The idea of punching the snout was a trick Leah learnt from watching an interview with surfer Mick Fanning after he was attacked in the water.
“I didn’t know about it until then, [so] thank you, Mick,” she said.
The group of strangers who saved her life
As Leah was dragged from the surf, her life was in the hands of strangers.
A band of specialists had gathered, quite by chance, on that sunny winter morning in Sydney’s east.
Among them were world champion paddleboarder Charlie Verco, surf lifesaver Ben Heenan, frontline trauma specialist Dr Ian Ferguson and a team of surgeons and doctors who defied overwhelming odds to save Leah’s life.
Heenan, the-then president of Coogee Surf Life Saving Club, wasn’t on duty but happened to be out for a swim with his partner Kassandra McGregor, who’s a doctor.
They’d just gotten out of the water in time but raced back to help when the scale of what had occurred became apparent.
A team of surgeons and doctors who defied overwhelming odds to save Leah’s life. Nine
“[We] heard more intense screaming, splashing, and started seeing red in the water and knew that a shark attack had happened,” Heenan told 60 Minutes.
As Heenan ran to the water with a board, McGregor dialled Triple Zero.
By a quirk of fate, a lifesaver of another kind was also at Coogee that morning.
Ferguson, a high-level trauma doctor with advanced medical knowledge, was grabbing a coffee before taking his daughter to a dance class.
He’s a frontline medico, skilled in giving pre-hospital care to the most seriously injured.
The fact he was down at the beach at that very moment, is nothing short of miraculous.
Surf lifesaver Ben Heenan was among many others who fought to save Leah Stewart Nine
In a matter of seconds after Leah was brought ashore, a makeshift medical team had assembled, including riot squad officers who happened to be patrolling that day.
“Ever since the Bondi attack, the police have had a greater presence down at the beaches, including Coogee,” Heenan explained.
“That’s been on a bit of a rotational basis so, again, it was just luck that it was the riot squad assigned to Coogee Beach as opposed to someone else as they have a tourniquet on their uniform.”
It was the expertise of Ferguson that would prove critical as Leah came close to bleeding to death.
Because Leah had lost so much blood, it was impossible to find a vein. In a move credited with saving her life, Ferguson drilled into the bone marrow of both of her shoulders to give her infusions of fluid – and later blood – which was raced to the scene by helicopter.
“I was hopeful that she would survive to hospital, but I didn’t think it was a given at that point,” Ferguson recalled.
Staff at St Vincent’s Hospital had similar doubts when Leah was wheeled in.
Her severe blood loss meant extreme levels of acid in her bloodstream, way beyond what is normally survivable.
World champion paddleboarder and rescuer Charlie Verco is also crediting with helping save Stewart’s life. Nine
‘Reliving the shark attack over and over again’
For 10 torturous days, Leah’s family waited and hoped.
They didn’t know if she’d survive. And even if she did, there was a serious risk of cognitive damage from her catastrophic blood loss.
Over that time, Leah underwent 11 surgeries, including skin grafts over the massive wound in her thigh.
In ICU her mum Christine, a nurse, felt helpless but she and Fernando let Leah know they were there.
“When I was in the coma, I was half present and I drift in and out of darkness to reliving the shark attack over and over again,” Leah revealed.
What Leah couldn’t see when she woke from her coma on June 23 was the extent of her injuries – but the truth is the 34-year-old already knew.
“My whole body was covered,” she recalled.
It’s a testament to just how far she’s come that two months after being admitted to hospital clinging to life, the young mum was able to walk out. 60 Minutes
“No-one knew that I knew. Fernando was there and Mum was there. I looked to them and I said, ‘Oh, I’m getting phantom pain’.
“They looked at me and they’re like, ‘What do you mean you’re getting phantom pain?’ and I just said, ‘because the shark took my arm’. They just looked at each other and looked at me and they’re like, ‘oh, you know about the shark?’ and I’m like, ‘yeah, of course’.”
On the mend
Leah, of course, has dived headlong into every challenge since.
Whether it’s learning to walk again or improving the use of her severely injured hand and learning to write again – going on to pen thank you cards on her last day in hospital to the team that saved her life.
It’s a testament to just how far she’s come that two months after being admitted to hospital clinging to life, the young mum was able to walk out. But she’s under no illusions that massive challenges aren’t still to come.
And, after making her first visit back to Coogee Beach since the ordeal, she thinks maybe, in time, she’ll get back in the water. Just not yet.
SOURCE: 9 NEWS
https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/60-minutes/leah-stewart-coogee-beach-shark-attack-60-minutes-interview-sydney-mums-incredible-survival-four-metre-great-white-shark-attack-20260828-p60sim.html
