Shark Attack Victim Leah Stewart Briefly Wakes From Coma, Remains in Intensive Care

Leah Stewart briefly woke from a medically induced coma on Tuesday and told her mother and partner Fernando that she loved them before asking about her daughter August. Stewart, a 34-year-old teacher and mother, was bitten by a shark while swimming roughly 100 feet from shore at Coogee Beach in Sydney on June 13.

She suffered multiple bites to her arms and legs, lacerations, fractures and extreme blood loss.

An off-duty lifeguard pulled her from the water and a doctor on the beach helped stabilize her. Doctors amputated one of her arms and performed several additional surgeries in the days after the attack. She was placed in a medically induced coma and remained on life support for a week.

On Tuesday, physicians reduced her sedation for a short period. Joshua Stewart, her brother, wrote that the step came faster than expected and described it as a positive development in her recovery. Stewart remains in intensive care and will undergo further surgeries in the coming weeks, her family said.

She is an experienced swimmer who had completed a 30-mile charity swim for breast cancer research and competed in the 2024 Coogee Island Challenge. A GoFundMe campaign for her medical costs has raised more than $505,028 of its AU$550,000 target.