just finished her regular Saturday morning swim<\/a> and was heading back to shore when she was alerted to danger.<\/p>\n“I heard a girl behind me\u2026 a shrill shriek. I turned and there was a huge, huge fin behind her. It was massive,” she told Nine Network’s 60 Minutes. <\/p>\n
“I looked at the size of it and I realised that’s not a dolphin.”<\/p>\n
Stewart turned around and realised the shark was “right there \u2026 and it just was getting closer and closer and closer.”<\/p>\n
The shark’s face was “horrific” with “black little beady eyes” and it’s “teeth and its mouth was massive”.<\/p>\n
“We were looking face-to-face,” Stewart said, and at one point, the shark was just 30cm from her own. <\/p>\n
Even in that moment, Stewart’s thoughts remained calm. <\/p>\n
“I’m right-handed, so I thought ‘let’s do a left hook’,” she said. <\/p>\n
“I just kind of throw my left arm and it just grabs onto my forearm and rips, rips away my skin, my muscle, everything… there’s a big gap between my forearm and the hand.”<\/p>\n
The shark started to pull Stewart under the water, grabbing her leg.<\/p>\n
“I had the thought, ‘this is it, this is how I die’ and then I just thought of [my daughter] August and I thought she’s not going to have a mum, she’s gonna grow up without a mum,” she said, fighting back tears.<\/p>\n
“I just knew I couldn’t leave her… I know it sounds strange but I sort of willed myself back.”<\/p>\n
Fighting the shark felt “like punching a brick wall” but she kept going.<\/p>\n
“I must have got a really good one in and so it let me go. It was the hardest thing in the world, but I fought my way out of there.”<\/p>\n
Stewart was pulled to the shore by other swimmers and rushed to hospital, where she was placed in an induced coma and underwent almost a dozen surgeries. <\/p>\n
Despite her harrowing experience, Stewart said she doesn’t want to be remembered as “a girl that got mauled on the beach”.<\/p>\n
“I’m the woman that punched the shark in the face,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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