Great White Shark Attack Catapults Teen And Kayak Into Air: Brother Drags Her Across Shark’s Back Into Boat

It was everything you could imagine from the movie Jaws, said 15-year-old Sarah Williams, who was kayaking when a 15-foot great white shark came up from underneath her and catapulted her into the air. The velocity with which the shark hit the girl was about the same you’d imagine if she was hit by a speeding car, said her brother.

A teary-eyed father talked to reporters in a clip shown on Fox News on Tuesday. The father and brother of the girl were in a motorboat nearby when the great white shark attacked her, and they immediately went into rescue mode. They were off the coast of South Australia, near Normanville, when the shark hit the kayak on Sunday afternoon, according to ABC News.

The father and brother could see the shark thrashing on top of the kayak, but they couldn’t see Sarah. At this point, the shark was thrashing between the boat and the kayak after tossing Sarah into the water.

Chris Williams, Sarah’s father, said he drove the boat toward the kayak, and he could see Sarah as she “clambered back onto the kayak.” At this point, the shark was still in between the two of them.

Sarah said, “I saw it when I was in the water with it. I saw what it was and I saw its fin.”

The motorboat that Chris and his son were in was a foot shorter in length than the shark. That 14-foot motor boat was all they had to get to Sarah and pull her out of the water and away from the great white shark. When they came up next to Sarah, her brother Mitch dragged her from the water and “across the shark’s back somewhere between its nose and dorsal fin to get her into the boat,” reports Chris.

A 15-year-old girl was catapulted into the air by a 15ft great white shark after it attacked her kayak https://t.co/SfkuJPqeMm

— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 24, 2017

The emotional dad said to reporters, “I am having trouble coming to terms with how my son and I were able to get her off that kayak and over the shark and into the boat without her getting seriously hurt.”

Chris Williams went on to say, “I have this vision all the time of this massive shark that was just thrashing in the water and ripping into this kayak which my daughter had been knocked off but was back on — I just don’t know how we got her off.”

At the time of the attack, Chris and Mitch were in their boat about 80 feet away from Sarah and her kayak, according to the New York Post.

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Chris told reporters that the entire rescue took no more than 30 seconds, but he doubted that Sarah would have made it if she spent just another 10 seconds in the water. The distraught father was still visibly shaken from the ordeal as he spoke with reporters.

The dad also said, “This thing came in and hit the kayak from underneath, catapulted my daughter and the kayak into the air and when I turned around… all I could see was the shark had launched itself on top of the kayak and thrashing its tail around and it was all white water and no daughter.”

“Then she popped up out of the water and climbed back on to the kayak and just screamed like you don’t ever, ever want to hear.”

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Sarah survived this great white shark attack with just bruises and scratches. She was extremely close to this predator, especially when her brother Mitch literally used the shark’s back like a ramp to slide her close enough to get her into the boat.

[Featured Image by Channel 9/AP Images]