A mother who survived a 4m great white shark attack at Coogee Beach, Australia, in June has described how she punched the shark in the face as it dragged her underwater.
Leah Stewart, 34, was swimming near the shoreline alongside other swimmers when she spotted a large fin in the distance. The shark then pulled her beneath the surface, biting her thigh and arms, leaving her with severe blood loss and trauma. Medics saved her after removing her left arm and providing an emergency blood transfusion.
Attack unfolded near shore
Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Stewart said: "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."
She added: "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!"
Fight for survival
Stewart said she decided to protect her right arm after thinking 'which arm am I willing to lose'. She described the moment the shark grabbed her: "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'."
Stewart fought back, saying: "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."
She added: "You can see the scars there. That's from me trying to punch its snout. I've kind of missed and hit some of the teeth. 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."
Rescue and recovery
After surfacing, Stewart saw a man on a nearby board and swam towards him, who helped her reach the shore. A medical doctor on the beach treated her immediately.
Stewart said she has not slept for nearly 11 weeks since the attack, as it is 'constantly replaying in my mind'. She said: "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."
Stewart revealed she has a 'lot of healing to do' before she would consider entering the water again, saying: "I don't want to let this experience ruin it entirely, but there's a lot of work to do before I can get to that point."
