After she woke from her induced coma, one of the first messages Leah Stewart sent was to the man who saved her life.
Shark attack rescue hero Charlie Verco paddled straight towards Leah as she was mauled by a great white shark while she was swimming at Coogee Beach on June 13.
The actions of the 25-year-old that day meant, against the odds, she survived.
“I saw through the media she’d woken up and been able to speak to her family for a quick second,” Charlie tells New Idea exclusively.
“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.”
Since then the pair have been reunited in person and been able to discuss the emotional events of that life-changing day.
“She’s an amazing person,” Charlie, a professional ironman who also works as a volunteer lifeguard, says.
“I got to hear a little bit about her story … her philosophy around it is incredible.
“She handles it so well and she’s really comfortable talking about it.
“She wants to talk about how she got to go home and see her daughter and how that was a pretty incredible experience.”
Leah, who has an 18-month-old, August, credits her fear of her daughter growing up without a mum as what kept her fighting for her life.
“[The shark’s] face was horrific – I will never forget. It was a monster,” Leah told 60 Minutes.
“It was holding onto my leg.
“All I was thinking of was August and I thought, ‘She’s not going to have a mum.’ I couldn’t handle that … I just thought, ‘I’ve got to fight it and do everything I can to be here.’”
The injuries to Leah’s back, arms and legs were so severe that her left arm was amputated and she was placed in a medically induced coma for nearly two weeks.
Charlie went into rescue mode when he saw the aggressive attack, in which the shark dragged Leah underwater.
But he wasn’t initially even sure he could help her.
“I couldn’t see her anymore because of the amount of blood in the water,” he says.
“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.”
Even as his instincts were screaming at him to paddle away from what was later identified as a 3.5-metre great white, Charlie, from North Bondi, says knowing he was Leah’s only hope kept him focused.
“As I got closer I could see she was obviously very freaked out and in shock.
“She was able to say ‘help’, and she was kind of able to respond to my instructions [to hold on to my board],” he says.
But as they got closer to shore, she lost consciousness, and Charlie had to find a way to paddle and hold her head out of the water.
He says the 50 or so metres to the beach felt like an eternity.
“When I put her on the ground and I could fully see her injuries … I wasn’t too optimistic,” he remembers.
“But I came back a couple minutes later and saw the people doing first aid had done an incredible job and she was conscious and that was where I had a little bit of hope.
“She’s been on the mend far faster than I thought.”
As Leah worked on her recovery, the months since the attack have been a whirlwind for Charlie.
From overwhelming media attention, a Surf Life Saving Award for the rescue, and achieving a paddling world record in Hawaii, he’s refused to let the traumatic experience stop him.
“I’m in the water every day – it’s such an important part of my life and provided me so much joy that I didn’t want to let the incident with the shark get in the way of that,” he says, admitting he’s more cautious about where and when he paddles now.
As for being a hero, Charlie is humble.
“I don’t feel like I did anything heroic,” he says.
“I did what so many other people would have done in that situation,” he shrugs, saying with a laugh that his mates and siblings have kept him grounded.
“They bag me out as being a fake celebrity.”