An Australian girl narrowly escaped a shark encounter with what is believed to be a 15-foot great white that knocked her from her kayak on Sunday afternoon, Gulf News reported.
Sarah Williams, 15, was fishing for squid with her father, Chris Williams, 22-year-old brother, Mitchell Williams, and other family members off the South Australian coast near Normanville when the shark struck.
Chris Williams described how the shark seemingly appeared out of nowhere and rammed into the kayak that his daughter was in, flinging her into the ocean.
He and his son, who were in a nearby dinghy, saw the incident unfold.
"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," Chris Williams said, according to Gulf News.
Mitchell Williams rescued his sister before the shark could attack.
"I think he’s literally dragged her over the back of the shark to get her into the boat," Chris Williams told Nine News Adelaide.
The shark followed the kayak back to shore but fortunately the family escaped, with Sarah Williams sustaining just a few bruises.
"As I’m just motoring along very slowly, here we’ve got this massive great shark with its huge fin following the kayak," Chris Williams added, according to the news station.
The area is currently under patrol by the Sea Rescue Squadron.
According to Gulf News, the encounter comes days after a diver was shadowed by a large tiger shark for 5 miles as he swam to shore.
There have been several shark-related incidents occurring off the Australian coast, including the death of a 17-year-old girl, and experts believe the spike in shark activity is due to an increase in the popularity of water sports as well as the movement of baitfish, which are moving closer to shore.
Shark attacks have been hotly debated for years, with experts striving to dispel inaccurate information about these creatures.
John West of Taronga zoo explained that in most interactions, the sharks were not intent on feeding on humans, The Guardian reported.
"While they do bite people they rarely eat them," he said, per the Guardian, adding that "the number of shark-human interactions occurring over the last few decades closely correlates with human population increases and the amount of time humans spend in the sharks’ environment."
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