Great White Shark Attacks Teenage Surfer In South Africa

A 13-year-old girl narrowly escaped a Great White shark after it grabbed her surfboard and pulled her into Nahoon Reef waters in South Africa earlier this month, reported The Telegraph Sunday.

Zoe Steyn, a surfer from East London, South Africa, sat on her board waiting for a wave when a Great White shark approached her, bit her surfboard and knocked her off on July 7. She was surfing at Nahoon Reef off East London.

Read: Why Do Sharks Attack, And How To Survive An Encounter With Them

“I just saw this huge black eye looking straight at me and a huge bang as it took my board and began shaking it,” she told the Telegraph. “It latched on with its jaws just missing my leg and it tipped me backwards and I fell in, and I just saw the black shape of it in the water and panicked.”

JP Veaudry, one of Steyn’s surfer friends, realized the surfer was struggling and came to her aid. He said he did not see the shark, but saw Steyn attempting to paddle to shore. He coached her on how to do so.

“I heard a death defying scream and saw loads of thrashing about in the water. Zoe was screaming and flailing in the sea as the shark had pulled the board out from under her,” Veaudry said to MailOnline Travel. “My first thought was to get out of there and onto the beach. But I couldn’t just leave her out there with the shark, so I paddled straight out to get her and she had got back on her board and I paddled back in with her.”

Steyn was about 300 feet from the beach when she was attacked by the approximately 10-feet long shark, according to Steyn and others present at the scene. Veaudry, a 40-year old surfer, said that the shark bit the board in the exact place Steyn’s arm would have been if she was paddling. Steyn was not harmed in the attack.

“I’ve never been so relieved to get on a beach in my life. JP told me I was very lucky,” she said. “I can’t thank JP enough for risking his life to paddle out and save me and go back to shore. It has taught me never to surf alone again.”

Read: Great White Sharks Spotted Off Massachusetts Coast

Steyn’s father said although his daughter was rattled by the incident, she surfed the day after it happened.

“The declining shark population is of great concern to her! She will be back in the water tomorrow for our local trials,” he wrote in a thread on the surfing website zigzag.co. “Also, all of you guys who rushed to her aid and paddled back to shore with her are just awesome! That’s the spirit we try and instill in our children, and testimony to the camaraderie in the surfing community.”