Whitsundays shark attack survivor recounts moment it struck

The picturesque azure waters of the Whitsundays turned blood red when Justine Barwick was attacked. She’s now telling her story.

Justine Barwick remembers the moment it struck and recalls distinctly knowing it was definitely a shark.

Then blood filled the water.

The 47-year-old had been swimming and snorkelling with her husband and a good friend at Whitehaven Beach at the Whitsundays in September last year when they made a decision that proved costly.

They took shelter from an incoming storm on the other side of the Whitsunday Islands National Park at Cid Harbour and took one last swim as the sun was setting.

As soon as Ms Barwick went in, the shark attacked.

Justine Barwick and her husband Craig. Justine was lucky to survive a shark attack at Cid Harbour in September last year.

“I knew immediately that it was a shark. It couldn’t possibly have been anything else,” she tells Australian Story in Monday night’s episode Out of the Blue.

Justine lost a large chunk out of her thigh and had her femoral artery severed before she was pulled back onto the boat.

Her husband Craig and friend Lynne administered first aid by applying pressure to the wound, but Ms Barwick was bleeding heavily and thought she might die.

She took long, deep breaths to control her anxiety as help arrived in the form of a doctor from a nearby boat.

John Hadok was just about to go swimming himself when he got the call for help and rushed to Ms Barwick’s aid. He told Australian Story she was lucky to be alive today.

A drum line lures a shark in Cid Harbour in the Whitsundays.

“Justine was so unwell, it was clear she’d lost a huge amount of blood. She was very pale, semiconscious, cold. Her extremities were mottled,” he told the program.

She did make it, with help from the RACQ Central Queensland Rescue Helicopter Service, waiting blood and teams of experts at Mackay Hospital first and then later Royal Brisbane Hospital.

Emergency doctor Tina Moriarty says she “couldn’t even feel a pulse” when Ms Barwick arrived.

“I didn’t even know if she would make it at all and I felt her chance of survival was close to 20 per cent,” she said.

While Ms Barwick’s incredible story of survival was unfolding, a 12-year-old girl swimming in Cid Harbour just one day later was bitten by a shark.

A shark was caught in a drum line in the Whitsundays after last year's shark attacks.

Hannah Papps from Melbourne would later have her leg amputated above the knee.

Less than two months later, a third shark attack in Cid Harbour proved fatal. Daniel Christidis, 32, also from Melbourne, died after being bitten in the same body of water.

Ms Barwick knows she’s one of the lucky ones, and she is doing her best to return to life as normal, including returning to the water.

“I was bitten by a shark,” she tells the program. “It’s sad, but it happened. Unfortunately, we can’t not experience the world for fear of everything, otherwise we would never do anything.”

Watch Australian Story’s Out of the Blue, 8pm (AEDT) on ABCTV and iview.