Shark attack: Teenage kayaker tossed into water by suspected great white
Shark-repellant products such as Sharkbanz aim to stop shark attacks, but many people aren't convinced. Photo: AAP
A 15-year-old girl has survived a terrifying encounter with a five-metre shark, which knocked her into the water in front of her family off the coast of Normanville, south of Adelaide.
Sarah Williams, from Mount Compass, was fishing for squid from her kayak when the shark, believed to be a great white, attacked the vessel.
“The next thing I hear was a big bang of something very solid hitting the kayak, then screams,” said her rattled father Chris Williams, who was in a nearby tinny at the time.
“Sarah — she had been thrown into the air and just come down into the water, and this shark has just rolled and all I saw was the dark side and the white belly and just huge fins and just white water everywhere.
“It was going to eat her.”
The teen’s family thought she was going to die. Photo: ABC
The shark circled and hit the kayak several times but Mr Williams rushed to his daughter’s aid, pulling her out of the water.
“[It] came back to the boat again and grabbed onto the boat and punctured it and has damaged the boat, and threw my daughter out,” said the teenager’s mother, Adrienne Clarke.
“We got her out of the water before it could do any further damage.
“The shark then followed the kayak while it was roped to our motorised boat for about 10 minutes trying to come back at it, but eventually gave up.
“My son, who was in the motorised boat, said it was the same length as the kayak.”
The teenage girl, who is a student at Tatachilla Lutheran College, was in a state of shock but escaped with only scratches and bruising.
She was taken to the Victor Harbor District Hospital.
“She loves the water, she’s a surfer, we quite often go out getting crabs out the water,” Ms Clarke said.
Sarah Williams was shaken but escaped with only cuts and bruises. Photo: ABC
“She likes to skin dive and so she’s a water girl, but I think this might change her perspective a little bit on water sports.
“The worst thing that has come of it she has lost her phone and her sound system, and she’s gone home with both of her legs.”
Sarah’s older sister was also taken to hospital suffering from shock.
“Everyone is very much shaken and to witness something like this, and to be your youngest daughter … maybe she was going to not make it today,” her father said.
The shark was monitored as it went out to sea by a sea rescue helicopter.
