A STINGRAY NEARLY KILLED ME
A WALK ON THE BEACH TRIGGERED TWO YEARS OF HELL FOR SHARON
It was 2004, two years before Steve Irwin was killed by the barb of a stingray. The world was not yet as aware of how dangerous these marine creatures can be, but a 32-year-old Sharon Muscet was about to find out.
“I was living in London at the time but had been sent home to Australia on a work trip,” Sharon tells New Idea. She was paddling at Adelaide’s popular Glenelg beach when the unexpected happened.
“The water was quite murky and I took a step and saw a small stingray hidden in the sand,” she says. “It flicked its tail up in defence and I stepped on it with my left foot.
“The barb was razor sharp and I remember being really frightened,” she says.
“It wasn’t a big wound but it was really painful and even as I hobbled back to my hotel it wouldn’t stop bleeding.”
But with an important few weeks ahead Sharon patched up the wound with her first-aid kit
and tried to soldier on.
“At that point I was such a workaholic,” Sharon says. “I’d be working 70 hours a week and I couldn’t let anything slow me down.”
Fate was about to intervene, however, and even as she dragged herself to meetings and dinners, infection from the poisonous barb was setting in. Extensive nerve damage had also taken hold.
Antibiotics from a GP didn’t touch the sides and by the time she’d flown back to London two weeks later she was in agony.
“My foot had swollen like a balloon and I was sent straight to the emergency department.
“I needed a drip for the now chronic infection,” Sharon says.
From there her two-year journey began. On the opposite side of the world from her family and friends she faced three major operations to clean the wound and remove infected tissue.
“After each surgery I was bedridden for eight weeks but the minute I started to bare weight again it would flare up,” Sharon says. “After the third operation they started talking about amputation. I couldn’t believe all this had happened after a walk on the beach.”
Fortunately for Sharon the nerve damage was so extensive she couldn’t feel much pain. “My doctors told me it was a blessing because the infection was down into the bone,” she says. “The downside was that we could never judge how bad it was.”
Eventually her company flew her home to Adelaide where she faced more surgeries as well as near-constant antibiotics.
Sharon had been warned she was looking at 18 months off her feet, possible amputation and even death.
“The antibiotics were so harsh that even the whites of my eyes went orange,” Sharon shudders. “But I was determined through all of it, until I got the blood clot.”
It was after her penultimate surgery that a clot in her lung almost killed her. “The pain was like an elephant on my chest,” Sharon says.
“I’d held it together until them but I was so scared. I didn’t want to fight anymore.”
Ironically it was as she stopped trying to control everything, she started to get better. After two years, her foot was a mass of scars, pins and rods but gradually she could
“MY FOOT HAD SWOLLEN LIKE A BALLOON AND I WAS SENT TO THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT”
bare weight on it again.
Sharon went on with live and welcomed Luka, 13, and Hugo, 12.
“I’d never imagined being a wife or mother but what happened slowed me down and started making me appreciate other things [than work],” Sharon says. “I lost so much
– my job, my independence, partial use of my left foot, my life as I knew it – but I also learned so much from what I lost.
“In the end the accident was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Focusing on things which made her happy Sharon became a marriage celebrant and, when a friend asked her to hold her father’s funeral, she realised that could be her calling.
“I had never felt more of service afterwards,” she says. “Nine years on and I have held thousands of funeral services.
“Dealing with the reality of death is the greatest privilege and talking about loss and how to find strength from it has given my life purpose.”
Sharon has also written a book, 7 Life Lessons Learned Through Loss, and says that her life, as well as her health, is now on track. “I’ll never run again,” she says. “But I’ve learned how to rise above a fate you can’t change.”
Two days after being arrested for murdering her mother, Gypsy Rose Blanchard made her way into the Missouri courtroom, cuffed and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. Visibly upset, the young woman’s high voice wavered and she cried while addressing the court to confirm her name and address.
But to observers and onlookers, the most shocking aspect of this dramatic moment was not Gypsy’s fragile emotional state or that she was set to face trial for murdering her mother. Instead, it was that she appeared physically well and was able to walk unassisted. Incredibly, the 23-year-old wasn’t displaying any of the disabilities her mother, Clauddine, known as Dee Dee, had claimed her daughter suffered from since birth.
This June marks five years since Dee Dee’s death. The 47-year-old was found in the bedroom of her pink-painted house in Springfield, Missouri, having died of stab wounds several days before.
The injuries were inflicted by Gypsy’s secret boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, while Gypsy hid in the bathroom with her ears covered so she couldn’t hear her mother’s screams.
Upon finding Dee Dee’s body on June 14, 2015, police hadn’t imagined her disabled and terminally ill daughter could have played a part in the slaying.
In fact, they were initially more concerned Gypsy may have met the same fate as her
“THE PRISON I WAS LIVING IN BEFORE WITH MY MUM, I COULDN’T WALK ... I COULDN’T EAT”
mother or been abducted by the killer. That her feeding tube, wheelchair and medications had been left behind at the mother and daughter’s house was a huge concern.
But when police tracked down the couple, it became clear that Gypsy had played a role in Dee Dee’s murder. She and Nicholas surrendered to police and were both charged with murder.
In a press conference the next morning, police hinted the case was more complex than people might initially suspect with the sheriff in charge, explaining: “Things are not always as they appear.”
It was finally revealed that Gypsy had experienced years of abuse at her mother’s hand. All her illnesses had been faked and it’s now thought Dee Dee likely
suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, now known as Factitious disorder imposed on another, a rare condition where a caregiver fakes the appearance of health problems in another person.
Over the course of Gypsy’s life, her mum falsely claimed she suffered from leukaemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy, brain damage, an unspecified chromosomal disorder and many other issues. Dee Dee shaved Gypsy’s hair, kept her in a wheelchair, fed her using a tube and often hooked her up to an oxygen tank. Gypsy was home-schooled, not allowed to form close friendships and, as she grew older, was physically abused and coerced by Dee Dee.
But to the outside world, Dee Dee was the devoted single mum of a severely unwell child. Their plight was widely publicised when Habitat for Humanity built them the pink, wheelchair-accessible house after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina left them homeless.
They received many other charitable donations over the years. They stayed at Ronald Mcdonald Houses during Gypsy’s many medical appointments, and received free tickets to theme parks and backstage passes to see Gypsy’s favourite acts via the Make-a-wish Foundation.
Seeing footage of a young Gypsy, it’s easy to understand why there was such an outpouring of support. With her childlike appearance and voice, shaved head, huge smile and sunny demeanour, she appeared vulnerable and charming.
But as Gypsy grew older, she began to suspect she wasn’t really ill and dreamt of breaking free. She attempted to run away from home, and when her mum was asleep, she began secretly going online. It was there, on a Christian dating website, that she met Nicholas.
In July 2015, Gypsy accepted a plea bargain of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison; she’ll be 32 years old when she’s eligible for parole at the end of 2023.
Godejohn was later convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.
In 2018, Gypsy told ABC News America that being incarcerated felt more liberating than life with Dee Dee ever had.
“The prison that I was living in before, with my mum, it’s … like … I couldn't walk. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t have friends. I couldn’t go outside, you know, and play with friends or anything,” she said. “Over here, I feel like I’m freer in prison than with living with my mum. Because now, I’m allowed to … just live like a normal woman.”