Australian Story: Dec 9

Monday’s Australian Story profiles Whitsundays shark attack victim Justine Barwick and hears her story of rehabilitation.

This episode is introduced by Matt Wordsworth, Qld ABC News presenter.

When Tasmanian woman Justine Barwick went for a swim off her yacht in Queensland’s iconic Whitsundays region last year, she had no idea her life would change in minutes.

“I just dived straight in and the shark got me just as my head broke the surface of the water. I knew because of the force it couldn’t have been anything else,” she recalls.

Justine was hauled out of the water by her husband and a girlfriend and between them they applied life-saving first aid as calmly as possible. The arrival of an emergency doctor on holiday a few boats away also helped her survival.

“I stuffed as many bandages as I could into my speedos and went up over the side,” says Dr John Haddock. “The thing that struck me immediately was the sense of order and calm that was in that cockpit. And I remember thinking, ‘these are extraordinary people.’”

A dramatic twilight helicopter rescue ferried the unconscious woman to Mackay hospital where surgeons managed against all odds to save her leg.

In the weeks following two more people were bitten in the same area and the third victim, Dr Daniel Christidis died from his injuries.

The unprecedented attacks ignited a heated debate about shark control in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park area which continues to the present day. Two snorkellers were recently attacked nine kilometres from Cid Harbour.

In the wake of the debate, Justine Barwick remains resolute about maintaining a positive attitude and in this exclusive episode she tells her story of survival and recovery accompanied by interviews from her rescue team and home video of her rehabilitation.

“I’ve learnt that a reasonably unattractive character trait like being stubborn can actually play to your advantage when times are really tough,” she says. “At the end of the day I was a tourist and I suffered a misadventure.”

Producers: Kirstin Murray and Emily Bissland.

8pm Monday on ABC.