Stella Berry, 16, killed by shark at Swan River once designed a shark-free ... trends now
Stella Berry (pictured) died on Saturday
A teenage girl who was mauled to death by a shark once made headlines for her impressive design of an ocean pool that would stop the predators from attacking swimmers at a popular beach.
Stella Berry, 16, was with friends on the banks of the Swan River in North Fremantle on Saturday when she saw a pod of dolphins and jumped in the water about 3.30pm.
Moments later, bystanders heard a scream when a shark latched on to her leg.
Stella was pulled from the river with critical injuries and died on the scene, despite the frantic efforts of witnesses and paramedics.
It can now be revealed that Stella was featured in a local paper in 2017 for her design of a shark-free ocean pool for Perth's Cottesloe Beach, as part of a school engineering project.
Great white sharks had been spotted at the beach, sparking the council to call for public submissions with ideas on keeping swimmers safe.
Stella, who was in Year 5 at St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls at the time, worked with one of her classmates to come up with a design for the ocean pool.
They were praised for their ingenuity by then-Cottesloe mayor Jo Dawkins.
Ms Dawkins told Perth Now she was impressed with the design because it allowed smaller fish to enter the pool, while keeping predatory creatures out.
'It's just like playing out in the ocean but there are no sharks,' she said at the time.
'[The students] addressed safety issues, accessibility issues, social issues, and they've done it so creatively.'
Stella Berry once impressed former Cottesloe Mayor, Jo Dawkins, (pictured together, in front of her pool model) for designing an ocean pool to stop sharks from attacking swimmers
Cottesloe Beach still does not have an ocean pool, but Ms Dawkins said at the time that Stella's idea was so impressive it could have been used.
In a picture accompanying the article, Stella is seen smiling next to Ms Dawkins along with a model of her ocean pool.
The schoolgirl was also a talented hockey player and represented Western Australia in interstate competitions. She was selected to travel to Tasmania in 2019 to play for her state.
On the day of her tragic death nearly six years later, bystanders Luke Smith and Joshua Warwick described the moment they heard Stella scream in the water.
'There was this big scream and then we see a girl just jump off and we see a few fins,' Luke told 9News.
'We saw the police running down the hill, and we thought maybe they were chasing someone and then we saw a girl on the ground getting resuscitated.'
Both teens had been swimming at the same spot 10 minutes earlier and said they were unsettled by the realisation they could've been attacked.
