A mother who survived a shark attack at Coogee Beach has revealed her skin graft has failed.
Leah Stewart, 35, suffered serious injuries to one leg and had her left arm amputated after she was attacked by a great white shark in June.
She narrowly survived the attack and has been undergoing treatment since, with doctors attempting a skin graft to help heal her injured left leg.
Leah has been keeping followers up to date on her health, but shared the “devastating” update that the skin graft had failed on Tuesday, September 22.
“Unfortunately, this is not the post I was wanting to do, but I had my graft checked yesterday, and it was confirmed that it failed,” she shared in an Instagram video.
“I’m feeling pretty devastated. [I’ve] had quite a few tears, and now we’re not really sure where to go from here.”
Whilst showing the bruising on her right leg from where doctors had taken skin for the attempted graft, Leah admitted it was still “pretty raw”.
Despite the setback, the shark attack survivor said she was determined to “keep moving forward”, and fans flooded the comments section with an outpouring of love for the mother.
Who rescued Leah Stewart?
Leah was attacked by a great white shark while swimming at Sydney’s Coogee beach on June 13.
Volunteer lifeguard Charlie Verco, 25, paddled to her rescue, and against the odds, Leah survived.
After waking up from a two-week induced coma, the first thing Leah did was text Charlie to thank him.
“I saw through the media she’d woken up and been able to speak to her family for a quick second,” Charlie recently told New Idea.
“Then I got a text the day after that, which I thought was amazing. It said thank you and she’d like to meet me one day, which was really cool.”
Charlie went into rescue mode when he saw the shark attack, though he wasn’t initially sure he’d be able to help Leah.
“I couldn’t see her anymore because of the amount of blood in the water,” he explained.
“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 paddled Leah back to shore on his surfboard, but didn’t know if she’d survive the attack after seeing the extent of her injuries.
He has praised Leah for handling the life-changing incident “so well”, and insists he is no hero.
“I don’t feel like I did anything heroic,” he added.
“I did what so many other people would have done in that situation.”
Since the attack, Leah has reunited with her one-year-old daughter, August, and her partner, Fernando, and is focusing on her recovery.
