hundreds of people gathered at Coogee Beach for a swim out to honour the mother<\/a>, organised by Coogee Surf Life Saving Club and Randwick City Council.<\/p>\nThe event aimed to encourage swimmers to return to the ocean while also offering continued support to the Stewart family and the broader community.<\/p>\n
The swim out included extensive safety measures, with surveillance drones overhead, lifeguards on jet skis, and inflatable rescue boats on standby to help reassure the public.<\/p>\n
Ms Stewart\u2019s partner, Fernando, is said to be “in shock” and rushed back from attending the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Canada to be at her bedside, reports The Daily Telegraph.<\/p>\n
She was an accomplished swimmer, having competed in the Coogee Island Challenge in 2024.<\/p>\n
The swimmer was around 30 metres from shore when she was attacked earlier this month.<\/p>\n
A local volunteer lifeguard, Charlie Verco, saw the incident unfold and acted swiftly to help rescue her.<\/p>\n
“The water got very bloody and she got taken under and after a few seconds, popped up again, and the shark had let her go,” he told ABC.<\/p>\n
“All I really wanted to do was to go to shore, obviously, but because I was the only one on any craft near her, I was like, \u2018If I\u2019m not here to help her, no one is.<\/p>\n
“She was lucid enough to say \u2018help\u2019, and respond to instruction, but she was very much in shock and definitely freaked out and wasn\u2019t able to have conversation.”<\/p>\n
The attack marks the latest in a series of shark-related incidents across Australia, particularly New South Wales, which experienced the highest amount of attacks for January in a decade.<\/p>\n
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has demanded the start of shark culling in the country’s waters.<\/p>\n
“Just read the latest news about a woman fighting for her life after a shark attack at Coogee Beach,\u201d he said in a video posted on Facebook.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s so wrong that we don\u2019t cull sharks after attacks.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s so wrong that we don\u2019t have a commercial shark fishery, given explosions in shark numbers.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s so wrong that we don\u2019t put people before sharks.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of a woman who was attacked by a shark off Coogee Beach has revealed she has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,87436],"class_list":["post-752642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-sydney-shark-attack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}