Leah Stewart, 34, has described the moment she fought off a 4m great white shark and thought she was going to die. She was swimming close to the shore at Coogee Beach, Australia, last June when the shark attacked her, leaving her with severe injuries.
Speaking to Good Morning Britain presenters Richard Madeley and Charlotte Hawkins via live link from Sydney, Leah said she had been swimming in clear waters near the shoreline alongside other bathers when she spotted an enormous fin in the distance.
Shark pulled her under the water
The shark clamped down on her thigh and arms, pulling her beneath the surface. She was left close to death from severe blood loss and trauma. Medical staff managed to save her life following the amputation of her left arm and a blood transfusion.
Leah told Good Morning Britain: "We were screaming trying to get the attention of the lifeguards but unfortunately I don't think they saw us and the shark continued to circle the girls behind me. So I thought: 'Okay, no one's coming. I'm going to try and sort of move closer to shore.' But as soon as I started moving, the shark came directly towards me and it was moving pretty slowly, pretty inquisitively."
"You know, sharks don't have hands, they have mouths and that's how they investigate. And as the shark got closer to me, it started to open its mouth and it sort of opened its mouth and I just knew it was going to get my body and my face. I had to use my arm to try and block the shark from biting me!"
Fighting for survival
Leah said she had to decide in a split moment 'which arm am I willing to lose', choosing to save her right hand as the shark grabbed onto her left arm. She added: "I was in so much shock at that moment. It started pushing me around in the water and then all of a sudden it grabbed onto my leg and ripped me under the water. Honestly, I've just never had so much fear. Like it's just true, pure fear."
She continued: "It pulled me under the water and I thought, 'this is the moment I die'. I have a beautiful little one-year-old, August, and I just was thinking of her and I thought, 'she's not going to have a mum. She's going to grow up without a mum'."
"I thought, 'I've just got to fight it. I've just got to punch it or do whatever I can to stop it from killing me.' So as it was pulling me under the water, it's grabbing onto my left leg and I just sort of flip myself around and just start punching it as hard as I can. I'm trying to go for its snout or its face."
Rescue and recovery
Leah added: "I was under the water, I don't know, for what felt like a really long time to me and eventually it just let me go and I popped back up. There was blood all in the water." As she surfaced, she spotted a man nearby on a board and swam towards him. He managed to bring her safely to shore, where a medical doctor was already present on the sand and treated her straight away.
In the wake of the ordeal, Leah said she has barely slept in nearly 11 weeks, with the events 'constantly replaying in my mind'. She added: "But I have a one-year-old daughter. And, you know, I could be in bed crying, feeling really sorry for myself. But when you've got a one-year-old, you can't do that. You just need to get up and keep going. I can talk about it because it almost feels like it happened to someone else. It hasn't sunk in that it was really me."
Good Morning Britain airs on weekdays at 6am on ITV and ITVX.
