'Screaming' teen girl survives shark attack in Australia

Last updated: October 25, 2017 at 00:08 am

A 15-year-old girl who was catapulted into the air by a 15ft shark has likened the attack to a Jaws film.

Sarah Williams was in her kayak off the coast near Normanville, south of Adelaide, in the state of South Australia, when the great white struck.

"All of a sudden, a big bang from the bottom and a shark had taken me. Not that I knew it was a shark," she told the Nine Network.

"Next thing I knew I was in the water with the shark and I was watching it attack my kayak.

"When I was in the air - because it threw me up in the air - it felt like I was watching the typical Jaws movie.

"I saw it when I was in the water with it. I saw what it was and I saw its fin."

Indescribable scream

Her father Chris and brother Mitchell Clarke-Williams looked on in horror as they saw the shark thrashing about and lunging at the kayak as the teenager screamed.

Mr Williams said: "All of a sudden this awful sound of something hitting the plastic of the kayak. I had my back to her.

"I've turn around and I see Sarah hit the water, because it has launched her out of the water, he's come up and hit from underneath."

Fighting back tears, he continued: "This scream. You can't describe. You cannot describe what this scream was like.

"So I just turned around, pulled the motor - thank God it started the first pull - and I just hit it as hard as I can straight back to her.

"The shark's come back and had another go at her, thrashing around, and she's screaming and trying to get back onto the kayak."

Her family got to her as soon as they could and her brother pulled her out of the water, dragging her across the shark's back, between its nose and dorsal fin, into their boat.

Mr Williams said if the rescue had taken 10 seconds longer she would have been dead.

"It's something I don't ever want to experience again. To hear the spine-chilling screams from your daughter is indescribable," he added.

The teenager suffered shock and escaped the ordeal with minor cuts and bruises.