Charlie Verco: He Paddled Towards The Shark To Save Her
episodePreviously titled “Charlie Verco: He Paddled Towards the Shark to Save Her” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 5, 2026
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What happened during the Coogee Beach shark attack?
This is an R Media podcast.
Marie Claire presents You're Gonna Want to Hear This. It kind of got more and more aggressive. Leah was getting dragged about a lot and then there was a lot of blood in the water and she got taken under and that was when I really went, what do I do now? I couldn't even see her because the water had become so dirty. And luckily, she popped up and the shark had let her go.
Were you scared of sharks?
Yeah, yeah. I've always been fearful of sharks. Not as scared as my dad is of sharks. He's very protective of his family in that sense.
Hello and welcome back to You're Going to Want to Hear This, the Marie Claire podcast where ordinary people share extraordinary stories. I'm your host, the editor of Marie Claire, Georgie McCourt. Now, there is a famous quote that I love from Nelson Mandela. And he says, courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. It is such a great quote and it's such a simple truth.
Why did Charlie Verco paddle towards the shark instead of swimming to safety?
Now on the topic of courage, I want you to imagine being in the ocean, being in the water and hearing terrified swimmers around you yell out shark. I want you to imagine paddling your board towards that danger. I think that act is so incredibly brave. We almost need a new word for it. My guest today is Charlie Vercoe, and that is exactly the situation that confronted him at Sydney's Coogee Beach when he rescued a young mum and local teacher called Leah Stewart. She was being attacked by a shark, and instead of swimming into the shore, he swam towards her and he brought her back to shore. It gives me goosebumps, and so will this conversation. Let's meet Charlie Vercoe.
So I was paddling. I'd set off from Bondi with a couple of people I'd actually pretty much just met from Wollongong that are also training for the race. And so there was a little convoy of us as well as my dad on a surf ski. And we were aiming to do a three-hour paddle. So we'd just gone to Maroubra, and we're heading back to Bondi. And we're about halfway through. And during a lot of these paddles, especially this time of year when it's a bit flatter, less wind, you just hug the coast as much as you can. And it gets a little bit freaky when you're going around the back of the cliffs and there's no one around. This day was just such a perfect day that I felt pretty comfortable, plus I had people around me.
And we even had the dads of the other people I was paddling with had a jet ski. So it was kind of as much comfort as you can get out there. But even when you're doing that, when you come into Coogee, that's the part where you feel most relaxed because you're close to the sand.
What did Charlie experience when he confronted the great white shark?
There's so many people around. And I paddled in, and the water was crystal clear, really blue. It was really warm for that time of year. There was no wind. And I was just paddling through all the swimmers. It was quite bright in the sun, so my main focus at that point in time was not running over a swimmer on my big board. That's hard to negotiate. And once I came into the bay, I was about 80 meters offshore and about 100 meters ahead of me. there was a group of three women and one of them started screaming shark. I actually met with the person who originally saw the shark this week and she said that she felt the shark before she saw it. It actually brushed up against her and she thought it was a dolphin.
So that's another bit of the story that's pretty insane to think about.
Oh my gosh, she felt it?
Yeah, she felt it with looking around at it and saw the tail and then figured out it was a shark and started yelling. As I said, I was about 100 meters away, so quite far away at this point. Most of the time, when you're in the water and someone screams shark, it's not a shark. It'll be some kids playing a prank on their mates or someone that saw a dolphin and reacted a little bit too quickly, which I've definitely done a few times in my life. At that point, you're always on edge when someone's screaming, but I hadn't thought there was any real danger. There was a couple of people near me that
How did surf lifesaving training prepare Charlie for the rescue?
heard the screaming and we i thought we were close to shore so i assumed that they'd just paddle swim in but they wanted to be out of the water as quickly as they could and i was the nearest thing to get them out of the water and i could see at this point there was definitely a clear shadow in the water and the screaming had gone on for long enough where i was like this is this is not a false call of shark and i had to go to these people uh you guys have got to swim in it we're not that far from shore and i've got to check that these guys are right where they're right next to the shark and
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What happened during the Coogee Beach shark attack?
0:04–1:07
2
Why did Charlie Verco paddle towards the shark instead of swimming to safety?
1:07–2:38
3
What did Charlie experience when he confronted the great white shark?
2:38–3:48
4
How did surf lifesaving training prepare Charlie for the rescue?
3:48–9:16
5
What challenges did Charlie face while towing Leah to shore?
9:16–19:07
6
What insights did a shark expert share about shark behavior?
19:07–33:59
Speakers
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