The lovely Australian surf town of Summer Bay may be portrayed as such, but in reality, it is a place where nightmares come true. The most outlandish things happen on Home and Away, where car crashes, kidnappings, explosions, and stabbings occur yearly like clockwork. Of course, who can forget the strange tale of the telepathic twins—who weren’t related—either??
Leah Patterson, played by Ada Nicodemou, debuted on the programme in 2000, and she exhibits a specific propensity towards calamity.
Leah has been married (and widowed/divorced) three times in the previous 23 years. She has also been impaled by a metal pole, deceived by a murderer, placed in a coma, and so, so much more. To be honest, it’s a miracle she’s still swanning around in Summer Bay’s Pier Diner, much alone alive at all!
The worst incidents that have occurred to Leah since she’s been on the show have been compiled here. Yes, we mean the absolute worst because if we listed every horrible experience she has had, we would never be able to compile a list.
1. Her first husband Vinnie Patterson died.
Leah believed that Vinnie died in prison, then a million years later, it’s revealed he actually died in witness protection during a farming accident. This is the first sign that Leah should get the hell out of the seaside town.
2. Leah was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery after getting appendicitis… and then had to head back after the doctor mistakenly left a swab inside her.
3. She had a miscarriage with her second husband Dan Baker… and then he also died.
Dan also came with a gambling addiction, and then fell to his death while… abseiling? His gruesome end happened off-screen, too, so maybe the writers just picked it out of a hat.
4. Her son VJ was kidnapped and held for ransom.
5. Leah found a new romance with Hazem Kassir, but Summer Bay is racist AF and he gets attacked.
Oh, and Leah’s Diner ends up burning down as a result… while she’s inside. Cool, cool, cool.
6. She became a recluse and agoraphobic after the firebombing incident.
Look, she realised that everybody she loves always ends up getting hurt, which is what we’ve all been thinking. But this is Summer Bay, and storylines never last that long. After Miles Copeland came by with some agoraphobia info, she was ~magically~ cured and took a walk down to the beach.
7. Leah found love again with Reverend Elijah Johnson. He ends up having to go overseas to do missionary work, so they take a break… and while Leah still harboured major feelings for him, he returned to Summer Bay with a wife and step-kid. Rude!
8. Leah got badly injured after the bus she was on rolled down a hill.
9. Because of the bus incident, she was in a coma for three months, and had some major mood changes once she was awake. Turns out she wasn’t out of the woods yet, and she had to undergo emergency surgery for an aneurysm.
Leah did some sus things after her coma, including slapping her son VJ and getting angry all the time. She also called Alf Stewart “Dad”, before getting lost in the bush. (Tbf, Alf is pretty much everyone’s dad.)
10. Leah finally found her happy-ever-after with Zac MacGuire and got married for the third time. Ha, just kidding, he cheated on her.
11. She disappeared for six weeks after being kidnapped by anti-feminist Douglas Maynard.
Douglas planned to marry Leah (guess he doesn’t know about what usually happens to Leah’s romantic partners), but she managed to escape just before the wedding. Convenient.
12. Her next romantic partner, Justin Morgan, ended up in hospital with back spasms and chemical burns. And surprise, surprise, doctors also found a tumour on his spine.
When will the Summer Bay men learn to stay away from Leah? And of course, after Justin’s back surgery, he ended up getting hooked on painkillers. The couple had a tough time after he admitted he was an addict, with Justin having some awful withdrawals.
13. Leah was sucked in by Stephen Tennyson, who murdered Susie McCallister.
He almost convinced her to leave Summer Bay with him, but she found some incriminating evidence just in time.
14. Her brother Dimitri Poulos turned out to be an abusive father, and after she confronted him, he attacked her boyf Justin.
Seriously! This gal needs to be single for a bit.
15. She was kidnapped and drugged by Marilyn Chambers’ biological daughter Heather, along with Irene Roberts, Roo Stewart, and Alf.
This storyline was nuts. First, Heather turned up in Summer Bay pretending to need tutoring from Roo. Then, she creepily left an old baby photo for Marilyn to find, before inviting everybody to a lovely high tea. Our OG characters were tied up, drugged, and Alf had a bad reaction. Heather ended up being pushed off the roof, yet somehow ended up in hospital without a single scratch.
6. Leah had a fiery car crash after gang members cut the brakes on Felicity Newman and Eden Fowler’s vehicle. She’s invincible, so she survived, but was impaled through her torso by a metal gate pole. Ouch.
The biker gang were trying to get back at Felicity’s brother Cash Newman, after he put a bunch of them away for doing illegal things, including forcing the Parata family to launder their money through Summer Bay Fit. What better way than to cause chaos when Felicity was on the way to her wedding? Leah, of course, was just collateral. As cited, this woman attracts disaster.
Oh, and her current storyline involves a scary cult, so you can almost guarantee that she has many more bad moments to come.
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