Swiss tourists Lukas Schindler and Livia Muhlheim’s summer holiday brutally cut short
Livia Muhlheim and Lukas Schindler struck everyone they met with their happy, friendly demeanour as they enjoyed their trip around Australia. But their happiness was cut short by a brutal shark attack.
Swiss tourist Lukas Schindler was receiving counselling in hospital on Friday night after fighting the bull shark that attacked his girlfriend Livia Muhlheim and pulling her dying body from the sea.
The young couple had set up a GoPro camera to film their early-morning swim with dolphins at the remote Kylies Beach at Crowdy Bay on the Mid North Coast on Friday morning when the 3m bull shark struck.
Mr Schindler, 26, fought off the shark with his fists and feet in a desperate attempt to drive it away from his 25-year-old girlfriend, who is understood to have lost her right arm in the attack.
Despite being bitten on the back of the right thigh he dragged her to the shore, staggered to his phone and called emergency services. His girlfriend died before help arrived.
A bystander was coached by triple-0 operators on how to tie a tourniquet around Schindler’s thigh. saving his life. He was flown to the John Hunter Hospital, where he remains in a stable condition.
A spokesperson for the Consulate General of Switzerland in Sydney confirmed both were Swiss nationals and their families were receiving consular support.
The couple had studied at university together and three years ago Ms Muhlheim celebrated the end of their studies on LinkedIn writing “we did it ... I am so proud of all of you.”
She recently gained an accounting and finance role at a Swiss investment fund, which praised her as a “former synchronised swimmer, a passionate runner and a valuable addition to our team”.
The couple had been enjoying the holiday of a lifetime after Mr Schindler completed an exchange semester at the University of Technology in Sydney this month.
The 26-year-old former first lieutenant in the Swiss Armed Forces ran the Sydney Marathon in just under three hours in August.
He had spent time in Bondi, where he took a “top notch” diving course with Dive Course Bondi, writing online: “I had an amazing time.”
Afterwards he uploaded an illustration drawn on a whiteboard showing him with two other students riding a shark.
Ms Muhlheim had visited Australia several times, and the couple was enjoying a dream trip when they checked into Kylies Beach Campground late on Wednesday night.
They had driven down from Noosa, where they took to social media to praise the “incredibly memorable” bed and breakfast they stayed in.
The hoteliers who accommodated them said they were “an absolutely gorgeous pair”.
Robyn and Michael Mitchell said the travellers had checked out of the Robyn’s Nest bed and breakfast on Monday morning to drive south 694km on a road trip through Brisbane, Byron Bay and Port Macquarie before arriving at Kylies Campground after 9pm on Wednesday.
“I feel utterly sick to learn it was the lovely Swiss couple who were attacked, we didn’t join up the dots to realise they were guests of ours,” Ms Mitchell said.
“They were absolutely gorgeous, such a lovely pair, so friendly and open.
“They were heading to Sydney and then to Melbourne.
“They were on a four-week holiday and loved Australia. All these European tourists who come here talk about how they’re scared of spiders, snakes and sharks.
“I think they spoke about their fear of sharks, but they were happy to be travelling in Australia and loved it,” she said.
“It’s so tragic what’s happened. I absolutely feel for them and their families.”
Other posts on social media by Ms Muhlheim and Mr Schindler took on a more macabre meaning in the wake of Thursday’s attack.
They visited a popular beach deep in Wallarah National Park in Lake Macquarie called “Shark Hole” and described it as a “magical place”.
There were no shark warning signs on Kylies Beach when they walked past kangaroos and headed into the water just after dawn.
Camper Peter Brown saw the pair heading down to the beach without a care in the world. “It’s so sad, they were so happy seconds earlier,” he said.
The attack brought back terrible memories for local surfer David Pearson, who survived an attack by a 3m bull shark in 2011.
“My attack was 10km from Kylies Beach. It was a normal afternoon, I paddled out, and was looking to my left when a bull shark came from the right and it came at me with its mouth wide open and its teeth became stuck in my surfboard,” he said.
“The top jaw of the shark came down on my left arm and tore my forearm muscle off, and it took me down to the bottom with it.
“It’s very quick and very violent, the water was turning red, and thinking the movies get it right, the water does turn red. I thought I was just about to die.
“Two guys saved me… using my leg rope to make a tourniquet on my arm.”
Mr Pearson has since started a support group for shark victims called Bite Club and planned to install community shark bite kits, which contain tourniquets, at the beach before Christmas.
“I wish I had installed them before the travellers came, I’m not saying it would have saved them but I was too late.”
The Department of Primary Industries deployed five drum lines after the attack but no sharks were caught and Surf Lifesaving drones reported no shark sightings.
The beach was reopened on Friday afternoon.
NSW Minister for Agriculture Tara Moriarty said 305 SMART drumlines had caught and tagged sharks that were monitored as part of the Shark Mitigation Program.
The tagged and released sharks include 1543 white sharks, 753 tiger sharks and 240 bull sharks. One tiger shark has been caught on a drum line at Port Macquarie since the attack.
Ms Moriarty said a “suite of measures” was in place as part of the $21.5 million Shark Mitigation Program.
“Culling has not been raised as an appropriate method by the state’s world-leading shark experts. It is not a policy the NSW government is considering,” she said.
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