SYDNEY, June 25 (World Daily Times) — A shark attack survivor in Sydney has woken from a 10-day induced coma and spoken to her family at her hospital bedside after doctors lowered her sedation and removed her breathing tube, according to updates from her brother, Joshua Stewart.
Leah Stewart told her mother and her partner, Fernando, “I love you” during a brief period of wakefulness in the intensive care unit, Joshua Stewart said in updates cited by Fox News and ABC News.
Joshua Stewart said doctors were able to extubate Leah and reduce her sedation after a week of life support and repeated surgery. ABC News reported that she had been in critical condition for 12 days after the attack at Coogee Beach on June 13.
In a later update, Joshua Stewart said Leah was awake, no longer in critical condition and able to communicate with family and medical staff. ABC News also reported that she had been reunited with her young daughter, August, for the first time since the incident.
Joshua Stewart said the reunion was the first time Leah and August had spent a night apart. He said hearing from her sooner than expected was “incredible.”
The family updates did not identify the hospital or the treating doctors. They also did not specify the shark species or give a full accounting of Leah Stewart’s injuries beyond multiple surgeries and the loss of her arm.
