Aussie teen survives shark attack

SYDNEY: A teenager has survived a terrifying encounter with a shark, after her harrowing screams alerted her father who was certain it was about to “eat her”.

Sarah Williams, 15, was fishing for squid from a kayak off the South Australian coast near Normanville on Sunday when the great white shark struck.

Her father Chris, in a dingy nearby with his son and another daughter, said she was thrown in the air and landed in the water.

“This shark has just rolled and all I saw was the dark side and the white belly and just huge fins and white water everywhere,” he told the ABC yesterday. “It was going to eat her.” He said the animal circled and hit the kayak several times as he rushed to his daughter’s aid, with son Mitchell dragging her from the water, over the shark and into their boat.

“That spine-tingling scream, that not only me but my son and eldest daughter heard, is something that you just can’t describe,” Williams added to the Nine Network.

“All night we’ve just sort of sat back and said ‘how have we got out of this alive?’”

The shark, estimated to be the same length as the kayak at about 4.5m, then stalked their motor boat for about 10 minutes as they made their way to safety.

The girl, who escaped with minor cuts and bruises, said the ordeal was “everything you picture in the Jaws movie”.

The scare came just days after a diver survived intact when he was forced to swim five miles back to shore shadowed by a large tiger shark after becoming separated from his boat in Western Australia. – AFP