A South Australian man says the screams of his teenage daughter were "spine-chilling" as she was thrown into the air by a great white shark in an attack like something out of Jaws.
Sarah Williams, 15, was kayaking with her family off the SA coast near Normanville, south of Adelaide, on Sunday when the shark struck.
Her father Chris says he and his son managed to pull her into their small aluminium tinny, dragging her over the back of the four-to-five-metre thrashing white pointer.
He says if the rescue had taken 10 seconds longer she would be dead.
"The shark has just hit her from underneath the kayak and has launched her and the kayak into the air," Mr Williams told ABC radio on Monday.
"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 teenager said the attack was "everything you picture in the Jaws movie".
"I saw it when I was in the water with it. I saw what it was and I saw its fin," she told the Nine Network.
She escaped the ordeal with just minor injuries, some scratches and bruising.
Mr Williams said it was fortunate his boat's motor started the first time and he and his son were able to reach Sarah quickly.
"The enormity of what could have happened is the thing that's haunting us now," he said.
"The difference between my daughter being alive and not being with me today is 10 seconds."
"It's something I don't ever want to experience again. To hear the spine-chilling screams from your daughter is just indescribable."
Once in the boat, Sarah said she was actually quite calm.
Her kayak had become entangled in fishing lines so was being dragged along by her father's boat with the shark circling around it.
Mr Williams said that gave his wife and another daughter, who were paddling in a second kayak, time to reach the shore safely.
The family say they won't be returning to the area to kayak.
- with AFP
