Mum’s shark bite kits appeal

The grieving mother of Charlize Zmuda, who died in a shark attack at Bribie Island, has appealed for help to install emergency control bleeding kits at a beach.

Renee Zmuda last week asked Moreton Bay City Council for permission to mount public access shark bite kits on existing Council posts at Woorim beach.

“We want to potentially save another family from the devastating heartbreak we have endured,” Mrs Zmuda told a full Council meeting.

Charlize started as a nipper with Bribie Island Surf Lifesaving Club and rose to patrol vice-captain, volunteering her time to protect Woorim Beach.

On February 3 last year, Charlize was attacked by a shark at the beach. Emergency services arrived but she could not be saved. She was 17.

There was a huge outpouring of grief and the Fifth Avenue beach access point at Woorim Beach is now known as Charlize’s Place.

However, the teenager’s mum is now working to have emergency control bleeding kits permanently available in the event of a shark attack.

“To be clear, we are asking for land permission only. No Council funding,” Mrs Zmuda said during the meeting’s Community Comment platform.

“Community fundraising will cover 100 per cent of the initial purchase and all ongoing stock replacements.

“We will also enter into a formal memorandum of understanding taking full operational responsibility for regular audits and upkeep.

“This will cost Moreton Bay Regional Council and the local ratepayers zero dollars.”

Mrs Zmuda said the emergency kits include military-grade tourniquets, heavy pressure bandages, trauma shears and instruction cards for those without prior training.

“By granting us permission to mount these community-funded kits on Council-access posts you give our community the lifesaving tools needed when every second counts,” she said.

“All we ask is, you grant landowner permission and assign a council officer to walk Woorim Beach with our team to sign off on post locations.”

Mrs Zmuda said Randwick City Council in NSW has approved shark bite kits on Council walls at Coogee and Maroubra.

Shortly after they were installed, bystanders used one of the kits to apply a tourniquet to a shark bite victim and help save her life.

Mrs Zmuda recognised Council “has had concerns installing kits on unpatrolled access paths might encourage people to swim outside the flags”

But the volunteer surf lifesaver said: “People are already there. On any given weekend our patrols see hundreds of families surfers and beachgoers across kilometres of coastline.

“It is physically impossible to compress every single visitor between red and yellow flags without creating extreme dangerous overcrowding.

“Thousands drive up the beach each year to camp, fish and swim far beyond the patrol tower. They are not going to pack up and drive back down the beach to enter the water.

“In a severe shark bite or marine trauma event, catastrophic arterial bleeding can cause fatal blood loss in 3-5 minutes.

“Public shark bite kits don’t encourage unpatrolled swimming, they apply a proven harm reduction model where visitors are already recreating.”