News in 5: 14-yo stung by potentially-lethal jellyfish; "Infuriating" Games' closing ceremony; Success in Syria.

1. “I thought I was dying.” Miraculous recovery of 14-yo following potentially-lethal jellyfish sting.

Hannah Mitchell, 14, in Western Australia was swimming in the ocean with her friend Zoe on Easter Sunday when she was stung by an Irukandji jellyfish.

WATCH: Hannah talk to Nine News about her brush with death.

She thought she was going to die and now, two weeks on from the potentially lethal sting, she’s finally out of hospital and recovering well.

“It was more than pain, it was enough to think I was dying,” Hannah told Nine News.

“I could feel my lungs and my heart, everything inside me was like crumbling, it felt like it was crumbling.”

Staff at Perth’s Princess Margaret Hospital, where Hannah was flown by the Royal Flying Doctor after being stung, saved the 14-year-old’s life.

“In all honesty we probably should have put her in an induced coma 24 hours before we did and so there’s conversations that need to happen around what to do next time and make sure we are not in this position again with other families,” Hannah’s mum, Casey, said.

“I heard her say in the hospital, ‘Mum, can you just let me die? I can’t take it anymore’. Not being able to make it better as a parent has been the hardest thing.”

Irukandji jellyfish are a species of box jellyfish. They are the smallest (only about a cubic centimetre in size) and yet still one of the most venomous jellyfish in the world.

According to the Barrier Reef Australia website, the sting is usually mild but the symptoms – referred to as Irukandji Syndrome – can be life-threatening.

They take around half-an-hour to develop, and include “lower backache or a headache, overall body pain, muscular cramps or shooting pains in the victim’s muscles, chest and abdomen, nausea, vomiting, breathing difficulties”.

Irukandji are most common in tropical Australian waters between November to May, if you are stung it’s best to douse the area in vinegar (if that’s not available, use sea water) and call emergency services immediately.

Hannah is back home and recovering well. After having periods where she thought she was going to die, she’s looking forward to the rest of her life.

“I’ll definitely be anxious to go back in the water because I nearly died but I don’t know, I hope to go back to the way things were and I’m excited to go back to the way things were,” she told Nine News.

2. Channel Seven’s Johanna Griggs “furious” after Commonwealth Games’ closing ceremony.

The Gold Coast Commonwealth Games have come to an end with a heavily-criticised closing ceremony.

Empty seats, slam poetry and a lack of star power made for an underwhelming spectacle as the 21st Games drew to a close at Carrara Stadium on Sunday night.

Presenters for the Seven Network, the Australian broadcast rights holders for the Games, added to the opprobrium, teeing off at Games organisers because the vision they provided did not include the athletes entering the stadium.

Viewers also missed out on seeing inspirational para-sports veteran Kurt Fearnley carrying the Australian flag into the arena.

Hosts Johanna Griggs and Basil Zempilas were "furious" at the ceremony-organisers, and unafraid to share their opinion on national television.

Zempilas started diplomatically: "Look, we understand many people have been disappointed by tonight’s Closing Ceremony. I’ve got to say it’s about the only thing they got wrong. They did get it wrong tonight."

But Griggs - well loved for her typically positive commentary - told Zempilas he was "being too polite".

"I’m sorry, you’re being way too polite,” Griggs told him, News Corp reports.

"People are thinking that Channel Seven has chosen not to show pictures of athletes or not to show the flag bearer, Kurt Fearnley ... We can only show the pictures that are provided by the actual host broadcasters. They made the decision not to have athletes enter the stadium. I’m furious."

"Actually wrecking a tradition that is so important ... You want to see the athletes come in. You want to see them jumping in front of camera. You want to see them celebrating 11 days of great sport. We missed out on all of that."

She continued that many athletes left half-way through the ceremony, saying she'd "never seen the stadium so empty".

At which point Zempilas weighed in, conceding many of the speeches were "way too long, dare I say, a little self-indulgent".

It's a disappointing end to an otherwise successful games - read about the highlights further down in this post.

3. Haunting images of 'Slender Man' stabbing have been released, after the girls responsible were sentenced.

Haunting images of bloodied clothes and a kitchen steak knife from the 2014 'Slender Man' stabbing have been released by police in the US.

The Waukesha Police Department on Friday released images of the 12-year-old victim's clothes, after those responsible for the stabbing - fellow sixth graders, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier - were sentenced to a combined 65 years in a mental hospital, New York Post reports.

Payton Leutner, who received 19 stab wounds to the torso, survived the attack, with her mum telling ABC News recently the wounds are "still red and angry more than three years later. Payton has a lifetime of healing ahead of her".

Geyser and Weier claim they were under the influence of the fictional called "Slender Man" at the time of the attack.

The images show yellow jeans and a white shirt printed with a heart and the words "Love, Hope, Smile, Beautiful, Dream", all soaked in blood. There is the kitchen steak knife used in the attack. And also pictures of the defendants at the time of their arrest, their clothing spotted in blood.

Mamamia has chosen not to share the graphic images. To view them, click here.

4. Koala makes a lucky escape as bushfires sweep through New South Wales.

Properties have been affected - and animals rescued - after a fierce bushfire in Sydney's southwest that blackened 2500 hectares across the weekend.

Strong winds pushed the flames north and east towards suburban streets on Sunday afternoon as more than 500 firefighting personnel battled to bring things under control.

The fire was upgraded on Sunday at 1pm when a fresh emergency warning was issued. And residents, too, were forced to defend their homes against the oncoming flames.

"I was fighting one of the fires around the back and I had a phone call from my wife saying there was a massive koala running through our vacant land," a resident told Nine News.

"He come up the street, crossed the road and managed to climb up to the top of the street. I think he was just as scared as anyone else I suppose. He's in a good place at the moment and is pretty safe up there."

RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the fire behaved "very aggressively" as it spread to the east and north, AAP reports.

Residents in Voyager Point, Pleasure Point, Sandy Point and Illawong, Menai and Bangor, to the east of Alfords Point Road, were on alert for ember attacks.

Goran Bubnjevic, 46, sent his three kids off to safety and spent the day with his wife holding back the flames, which at one point were right next to their fence.

"It was very very close," he said.

Fire investigators and police are working to establish how the fire was started. NSW Police have declared the area a crime scene but the RFS says it's too early to declare if the blaze was deliberately lit.

Asked about that possibility, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said: "The community would deem it absolutely unforgivable if this fire was deliberately lit."

Winds are expected to die down on Monday, further aiding the firefighting effort.

5. Syria's chemical weapon stations were destroyed in US airstrike, with Trump telling the world: "Mission accomplished".

The US says it overwhelmed and evaded Syrian air defence to strike every target at the heart of Syria's chemical weapons program, in a multi-pronged attack from the air and sea alongside British and French allies.

The prime target of the operation was the Barza Research and Development Centre in the greater Damascus area, which Marine Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie noted was "one of the most heavily defended aerospace areas in the world".

Barza took the brunt of the fire, with 57 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 19 Joint Air to Surface Stand-off missiles.

Though some of Syria's chemical weapons infrastructure was still left, "I think we've dealt them a severe blow," McKenzie said, adding it would set the program back for years.

Despite severely damaging the infrastructure with the strikes, McKenzie said the Pentagon would not rule out that the Assad government still had the capability to use such weapons again.

"There's still a residual element of the Syrian program that's out there," he said. "I'm not going to say that they're going to be unable to continue to conduct a chemical attack in the future. I suspect, however, they'll think long and hard about it."

President Donald Trump said after the strike "mission accomplished", and has now been forced to defend his use of the phrase.

The phrase is associated with President George W. Bush, who used it in 2003 during the Iraq war but which dogged him for the rest of his presidency.

"The Syrian raid was so perfectly carried out, with such precision, that the only way the Fake News Media could demean was by my use of the term 'Mission Accomplished'" Trump said on Twitter on Sunday.

"I knew they would seize on this but felt it is such a great Military term, it should be brought back. Use often!" he said.

In May 2003, President Bush stood on an aircraft carrier under a giant "Mission Accomplished" banner and declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" - just six weeks after the invasion.

But the war dragged on for many years after that and the banner became a symbol of US misjudgements and mistakes in the long and costly conflict. Bush was heavily criticised for the move.

6. It was a "Games of Firsts" and here's a summary of what happened on and off the field in the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

They started with two world records and finished with the world's best teams putting on the two most thrilling contests of the Games.

And, in between, the Commonwealth Games fulfilled their promise of inclusion and equality.

Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive David Grevemberg calls them the 'Games of Firsts'.

The firsts came on and off the field.

The medals were shared equally between men and women, para competition was fully integrated and a transgender weightlifter provoked debate.

Beach volleyball made its debut, South Africa won its first men's 100m title, Eileen Cikamata became the first Fijian woman to win Commonwealth gold and tiny island nations like the Cook Islands and Vanuatu were among among the medals.

In all, 42 out of the 71 nations shared the medals, five for the first time.

But, as inclusive as the Games were, Australia overwhelmingly dominated the medal table winning 80 of the 275 gold medals available, with England a distant second on 43.

The host nation's procession began when their women's relay swimmers and men's team pursuit cyclists broke world records on day one, but ended with heartbreak on the closing day in two virtual world championship events.

Their netballers lost to England - another first - to a goal on fulltime, while the Olympic champion rugby women were beaten by New Zealand in extra time.

They were among a handful of world class performances on the Gold Coast.

The world's No.1 triathlete Flora Duffy won gold on the opening day and Adam Peaty continued his four-year unbeaten run in the 100m breaststroke, while a host of Olympic champions delivered on their reputations at the athletics.

Caster Semenya's 800m-1500m double, Shaunae Miller-Uibo's gold in the 200 and Conselus Kipruto's steeplechase, along with Botswana's Isaac Makwala's 400m win were worthy of any Olympic Games.

As well as being a Games of firsts, it was a Games of surprises.

For the first time since 2002, Jamaica failed to win a flat sprint or relay gold medal, the closest they came was Ron Levy's 110m hurdles gold.

It wasn't a complete failure for the Jamaicans who defied the stereotypes, winning steeplechase, triple jump, discus and shot put gold medals.

But the Commonwealth Games' sense of inclusion also creates one of its biggest failing - cheap medals.

None were cheaper than Australian boxer Taylah Robertson's bronze won after she lost her only bout in the women's 54kg.

At least English visually impaired cyclist Sophie Thornhill won her race to claim gold in the women's sprint from a field of two.

"It's about more than just sport, it's about sport and the impact sport can have on society," Grevemberg says.

Questions about cheap medals provided one of the few controversies in a comparatively incident free Games.

African athletes went missing and two Indians were expelled when needles were found in their rooms.

Potentially the biggest controversy of the Games was avoided when transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard injured her elbow attempting a Commonwealth record and pulled out of the over 90kg class.