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Shark survivor Leah Stewart returned to the beach with her partner Fernando Alves, and toddler daughter, August, on Father’s Day – and now the brave Aussie is getting candid about one specific detail in the snaps.
Leah admits it’s an “annoying” item that she now never photographed without – and the 34-year-old has explained it’s a vital part of her healing journey.
“Introducing you to my very stylish grey handbag,” Leah, who lost her left arm in an horrendous great white shark attack on June 13, said in an Instagram post on September 4.
She went on to show followers the small grey bag with the black canvas strap which, since being released from hospital, she has had to wear constantly.
“It is called a vac machine…or a negative pressure wound therapy machine,” she says, adding that it’s her second machine and one that, thankfully, is far smaller and more transportable than her first.
Leah then went on to share harrowing details of her current situation.
“My leg is still an open wound at the moment. Hopefully, it will be closing soon with my second trial of add a skin graft.
“But for now, this machine is pulling all of the wound together and then collecting all of the excess fluid,” she said of her gruesome injury.
“It is a little bit annoying because if you forget to charge it, you need to race home and plug yourself into a wall.”
Leah explained that the hi-tech device is constantly attached to the plastic-covered wound and it creates suction, pulling the wound together and removing fluid.
“If there’s any sort of movement on the leg, it will start beeping at you if you get a little bit of air going in there, so I’m constantly being harassed by this machine, but I’m very thankful for it because it has made a huge impact on the healing of my leg,” she added.
Leah, who spent ten days in a medically-induced coma following the Coogge attack, has also opened up about her hopes for her next leg surgery.
“Hopefully, it [my leg wound] will be closing soon with my second trial at a skin graft,” she said.
She has previously shared how her daughter was the reason she survived the injuries, initially described by surgeons as not compatible with life.
“When it [the shark] was holding on to my leg I had the thought, ‘This is it. This is how I die’,” Leah told 60 Minutes.
“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,” she said through tears.
“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 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.”
As the shark let go of Leah, world champion paddle boarder, Charlie Verco, who happened to be close by, was able to swoop in and rescue the mother of one.
“Luckily enough, it did let her go… once she popped up I was like, now’s the chance I’ve got to go and grab her,” Charlie told New Idea exclusively.
Charlie admits he was “not optimistic” when he saw the extent of Leah’s injuries but the first aiders on the beach and team of medical staff at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, helped her live.
It’s a miraculous story of survival which has captured the hearts of Australians nationwide and there was public backlash after radio host Brendan Fevola accused Leah of playing up her account.
“She’s missing a limb, like her forearm is gone … if a shark was attacking you, you wouldn’t have much time to think I wouldn’t have thought,” Fevola said on radio. “I was on the couch with my wife Alex and my kids going, ‘She’s lying. Too much time to think. You’re not thinking all that, are you?’”
“We’re standing with you, what an amazing woman! Live strong, change the world, sending love,” wrote one fan on her Instagram in the days after.
“Thank you for sharing your inspirational courage, recovery and resilience with us all. You have reminded us what is most important in life, family,” wrote another.
