‘Went for a swim and never came back’: Leah Stewart reveals the thought that kept her alive
Sydney mother Leah Stewart recently shared the heartbreaking motivation that fueled her incredible will to survive a devastating great white shark attack at Coogee Beach.
She was enjoying a morning swim between the safety flags on June thirteenth when the sudden, horrifying attack completely altered her entire life trajectory forever.
Stewart had just bidden farewell to her young daughter August on the sandy shore moments before stepping into the seemingly calm ocean water that day.
While swimming near the shoreline, she suddenly heard a woman behind her let out a terrifyingly shrill shriek, immediately signaling that something was terribly wrong.
Turning around to look, Stewart spotted a massive fin protruding from the water, completely freezing her in absolute terror before she desperately attempted to flee.
She desperately started swimming straight for the shore but abruptly stopped after sensing intense movement directly in the ocean water right beside her vulnerable body.
A four-meter great white shark slowly approached her with its jaws wide open, stopping just thirty centimeters away from her deeply terrified, staring face.
She clearly recalls looking directly into its massive mouth, staring deeply into its black, beady eyes while hovering completely face-to-face with the ocean apex predator.
Realizing she needed to protect her dominant right hand, the desperate mother bravely used her left arm to violently strike the massive, approaching sea creature.
The shark immediately retaliated by completely shredding her left arm before aggressively seizing her upper thigh and forcefully pulling her deep underwater into the darkness.
While being dragged beneath the surface, Stewart initially accepted her horrific fate, thinking this was exactly how she was finally going to brutally pass away.
The fearless fight for survival in the face of a vicious great white shark
However, the terrifying thought of her beloved daughter August growing up completely without a mother instantly ignited a fierce, unstoppable rage inside the drowning woman.
Refusing to let the creature take her away from her precious child, she mentally declared she would do absolutely everything possible to survive the ordeal.
She began aggressively punching the massive predator repeatedly, later comparing the exhausting, desperate struggle to violently fighting against a massive dinosaur or a brick wall.
World champion paddleboarder Charlie Verco was conveniently training nearby and heroically rushed into the bloody water after seeing the massive shark finally release her limb.
Verco admitted the massive amount of blood clouding the water was incredibly scary, as it completely prevented him from seeing exactly where the shark was.
Stewart barely remembers the dramatic rescue but distinctly recalls the absolute paralyzing fear of the shark returning to aggressively grab her vulnerable legs once more.
Coogee Surf Life Saving Club president Ben Heenan also rushed into the terrifying surf with a rescue board to safely retrieve the critically injured mother.
His partner, Doctor Kassandra McGregor, immediately called emergency services while a nearby trauma specialist, Doctor Ian Ferguson, rushed over to provide critical medical assistance.
Doctor Ferguson performed an emergency procedure on the beach, drilling directly into her bone marrow to administer life-saving fluids because she had lost massive blood.
Stewart was rushed to the hospital in an extremely dire condition, where doctors placed her into a medically induced coma to treat her catastrophic injuries.
The terrifying shark attack completely tore away the outside muscle of her left thigh and severely damaged her left arm, which required a full amputation.
Her right hand also sustained serious nerve and tendon damage, requiring extensive medical intervention and leaving her deeply traumatized family waiting anxiously for ten days.
While trapped in the dark coma, Stewart constantly drifted between unconsciousness and terrifyingly re-living the horrific shark attack over and over again in her mind.
Immediately upon waking up from the coma, she instantly recognized she was experiencing phantom pain, calmly telling her bewildered nurses the shark took her arm.
Medical professionals informed her that she would have likely bled to death if she had remained in the ocean water for just a few seconds longer.
Because of this incredibly rapid response, she remains forever grateful to the brave strangers who were miraculously present at the exact right time to help.
Being separated from her young daughter for two full weeks was an incredibly distressing and emotionally confusing experience for both the mother and the child.
Before the vicious attack, she had never been away from her precious daughter for more than a few short hours, making the lengthy separation agonizing.
She heartbreakingly noted that she simply went for a routine morning swim at the local beach and never actually came back home to her child.
Now safely recovering, Stewart plans to write an empowering children’s book specifically dedicated to her daughter to highlight her own incredible inner strength and resilience.
The planned book will explain how a mother’s profound love is powerful enough to help her safely escape even the absolute scariest situations imaginable.
She wants to remind her child that her intense maternal love will always ensure she is protected, reassuring her daughter that she is not going anywhere.
Currently back on her feet, the determined mother is actively learning how to properly use her severely injured right hand again through intense physical rehabilitation.
Stewart adamantly refuses to be remembered simply as a helpless girl who was tragically mauled by a shark while swimming at the beach one morning.
Instead, she proudly wants the entire world to remember her as the incredibly fierce woman who violently punched a massive great white shark in the face.
She fought like absolute hell to survive the hardest thing in the world, fiercely battling her way out of the ocean just for her daughter.