Charlize Zmuda’s parents recall the heartbreaking moments after their daughter was killed in a shark attack

The parents of Queensland shark attack victim Charlize Zmuda have spoken of the heartbreaking moments that followed the tragic news their daughter had been killed.

Charlize was swimming at Bribie Island’s Woorim Beach when she was bitten by a shark late on Monday afternoon.

The 17-year-old suffered life-threatening injuries to her upper body and died at the scene, despite efforts to save her.

Her father, Steve, speaking exclusively with The Courier Mail, said he knew something was wrong at the beach when he heard sirens, with a Facebook post soon after confirming there’d been a shark attack at the very beach his daughter often swam at – and patrolled.

Charlize was a Bribie Island Surf Life Saving Club member.

Mr Zmuda said he made some calls to see if anyone knew who the victim was, only to be told “it’s not good”.

“I said ‘Is it a fatality … do we know them?’” he told The Courier Mail.

“‘Steve I have to tell you, it’s Charlize’.

“I screamed, all the neighbours came running out.”

Unable to reach his wife, Renee, Mr Zmuda called his mother before a police officer, Senior Sergeant Duncan Price, arrived at his home.

“He said ‘You know’ and I said ‘I do’,” Mr Zmuda said.

“I was a broken man, he was a broken man.”

Finally able to get his wife on the phone, Mr Zmuda was speechless, his wife screaming at him to “just tell (her)!”

After telling his wife to pull over at a service station to meet a police officer, he then had to break the tragic news to his youngest daughter, Steph, who had come outside to ask what happened.

“I said ‘Charlize is dead’ … to see my daughter try to process the fact that she had lost her sister, as a 13-year-old girl …” Mr Zmuda said.

Mrs Zmuda said it didn’t, and still doesn’t, “feel real”, racing to the beach once she heard the news because she “knew (she) would be able to feel her there”.

She then went with Charlize’s patrol captain, Jason Burr, to the ambulance station to see her daughter.

Mr Zmuda was unable to go with her.

Charlize’s parents described her as “cheeky”, “witty”, and someone who “brought so much light and love to this world”.

“She truly lifted people up,” Mrs Zmuda said.

She was a talented musician who played the trumpet, guitar, ukulele, piano and sang.

She’d just attended her school formal and got her provisional license and was one of the co-captains at her surf club.

Mr and Mrs Zmuda said while their daughter didn’t have it all figured out, she’d talked about maybe pursuing marine biology.

“She just wanted to travel after school, she didn’t really know what she wanted to do in life other than that she loved living it and loved being at the ocean and I said there’s no rush,” Mrs Zmuda said.

She said she could only describe her daughter as “pure”.

“As a seven-year-old she wrote a letter to Santa to say ‘I don’t need anything … I have my family and I have love, and that’s all I need’,” Mrs Zmuda said.

She said she wanted her daughter to be remembered for “how she lived” rather than how she died.

“Her life may have been cut way too short, and I am heartbroken that I will never get to see all the amazing things I know she would have accomplished, but I find peace in the fact that she crammed so much living into the 17 years she had here on earth … I know she will be watching over us,” she said.

Charlize’s parents urged people to “get back in the water” and swim between the flags, with their youngest daughter set to compete in an SLS competition in Mooloolaba on Saturday.

Mr Zmuda earlier told the media he and his wife didn’t want people to stop going to the beach while speaking at a vigil just a day after their daughter’s death.

“It’s a big part of our lives, we’ve got our family here, our community and we love everybody here,” he said.

“So please still come to the beach and enjoy the surrounds of every beach up and down the coast.”