- Nicole Moodie’s daughter, Sam, 12, was walking to her brother’s school when a magpie crossed her path
- Despite shielding herself from the swooping bird, the magpie managed to pierce its beak into Sam’s left eye
- The attack has led to injuries so severe that Sam may never be able to see out of her left eye again
- Her family are raising funds on GoFundMe for help with Sam’s much-needed hospital treatment
Here Nicole Moodie, 49, from Leschenault, WA tells her story in her own words.
Spreading a layer of peanut butter and jam on four slices of bread, I hurriedly made two sandwiches and packed them in the lunch boxes on the kitchen benchtop.
‘Make sure you go to your brother’s school after you finish today, and I will pick you both up from there,’ I reminded my daughter, Sam, then 12.
Sam and her brother Archy, then nine, attended neighbouring schools, which meant that after a day of working in finance, it was often easier for me to collect them as a pair.
That day, on November 6, 2025, I was running 20 minutes late at the end of the day, so I called Sam to tell her to walk over to the primary school oval, where Archy was playing basketball.
Just a couple of minutes later, she called me back, crying so hard I could hardly understand her.
‘Mum, a magpie swooped me in the eye, and it hurts so much, I can’t see,’ she told me, between heaving sobs.
‘I’m on my way darling, just try and get yourself under shelter,’ I told her.
I thought she was just shaken and suffering from a scratch.
But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I got to the oval.
I found Sam in the sports shed with Archy’s basketball coach, Steve.
‘Nic, you have to take her to a hospital now. Her eye looks serious,’ he told me soberly.
‘Do you think you could move your hand a little bit to let me look at your eye?’ I asked Sam.
Archy was there too, and as Sam slowly lifted the fingers she had clamped over her left eye, we all gasped in absolute horror.
Mangled pieces from the inside of Sam’s eye were hanging beside her eyelid, which was oozing fluid and blood.
What the…?
Reeling from the sickening sight, Steve offered to drive Archy home while I rushed Sam to Emergency at Bunbury Regional Hospital.
During the drive, I learned more about what had happened to my girl.
Sam had been about 50 metres from the sports shed, walking with her head down while scrolling on her phone, when suddenly a squawk pierced the quietness.
She froze as beating wings bore down on her, and before she could put her hands up to shield her face, a raging magpie had plunged its razor sharp beak right into her eye.
‘The magpie came out of nowhere, Mum, and my head was already down, but it still attacked me,’ Sam sobbed.
‘Everything went blurry and I fell to the ground.’
SUPPORT NICOLE AND HER FAMILY IN THEIR FUNDRAISING FIGHT FOR SAM’S TREATMENT
With no-one nearby, Sam had called me before stumbling into the shed where Steve jumped in to help her.
The magpie was known to be an angry bird which regularly harassed kids who walked past its nest.
Sam had been unknowingly walking towards its nest which must have triggered its fierce attack.
After we arrived at the hospital, an eye specialist saw Sam immediately and, after an initial check-up, he advised me to take her to Busselton Hospital for emergency surgery.
‘It looks like the magpie’s beak pierced through Sam’s cornea and then through her iris, popping it like a balloon, which has done significant damage to her lens,’ the doctor said, explaining the gruesome injury would require major operations and at least 15 months of treatment.
The news sent Sam into a panic, but I did my best to keep her calm.
‘Everything is going to be okay. We will get you all the help you need,’ I told her, trying to keep my own worries in check.
Sam was given pain medication, which helped a little, and we headed to Busselton where Sam had surgery at 9.30pm to have her detached cornea, iris and lens stitched together.
The op took six hours and afterwards, Sam’s eye was covered with a patch, which could only be lifted to administer eye drops every couple of hours.
‘I’m right here, your eye is going to be okay,’ I told Sam as I held her hand and hugged her as she cried in excruciating pain.
The next morning, my eldest daughter, Laila, then 20, drove my eldest son Alex, 18, and Archy to the hospital, and they were heartbroken to see their sister struggling.
Two days later, the situation got even worse when Sam’s surgeon noticed that the lens in her eye was beginning to swell.
She had to go to Perth Children’s Hospital for emergency surgery to remove the lens entirely.
‘Everything looks bright, Mum. I can’t see,’ Sam cried, as her eye was covered with a special shield after the op.
For the next four days Sam remained in hospital until, finally, she was well enough to be discharged.
But the outlook was deeply troubling.
‘Even with treatment, there is a chance that Sam might never regain vision in her left eye,’ the doctor told us. It was devastating.
My girl had been so brave throughout her surgeries, that she struggled to process this news.
Sam is trying to live as normally as possible, but she currently relies solely on her right eye to see.
She remains in pain and struggles to do her schoolwork.
Sam has check-ups every two weeks, and in 12 months doctors will decide what to do depending on how her eye has healed.
It’s shocking to think that a magpie could inflict such horror.
I hope lessons are learned from what happened to Sam, and that angry birds like this one are removed and relocated to a place where they can just leave humans in peace.
To help Sam and her family in their fight to save her sight visit their GoFundMe page
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