Charlie Verco rescues woman in Leah Stewart Shark Attack at Coogee

Charlie Verco pulled a woman to shore after a leah stewart shark attack at Sydney’s Coogee Beach on Saturday morning, using his 18-foot paddleboard to bring her back after the shark attack just after 11am. Verco, an elite paddleboarder and trained surf life saver, said he was training for July’s world championships in Hawaii when he heard a swimmer shouting “shark.”

Several swimmers tried to climb on to the board, and Verco said the woman disappeared and then reappeared before he helped her hold on. He said the rescue became harder when she lost consciousness as he tried to reach shore.

Charlie Verco at Coogee Beach

Verco described the shark as surfacing with a dorsal fin he estimated at 3.5 metres. “I’m familiar with shark behaviour and it looked like it was just being inquisitive, it didn’t look like aggressive behaviour,” he said after the attack. He also said, “But then another woman started screaming, and I could see she was being dragged around by something … there was a lot of blood in the water, it was quite shocking.”

He added, “The shark surfaced, I saw its dorsal fin – it was big, about 3.5 metres. I’ve only ever seen one shark bigger than that, and that was a tiger shark in Hawaii.” Verco said, “I had to try and keep hold of her with one hand and keep paddling towards shore with the other.”

St Vincent’s Hospital

New South Wales Ambulance said the woman, who was in her 30s, suffered arm and leg injuries and was taken by road to St Vincent’s hospital. By Saturday evening, she was in a critical condition. Steve Pearce said it was the fourth serious shark incident in Sydney since September 2025.

All beaches from Bondi to Maroubra were closed for at least 24 hours after the attack. For people along that stretch of coastline, the immediate change is a broad closure that kept swimmers out of the water while the response continued at Coogee Beach.