New Zealand girl, 14, beats off shark attack

WELLINGTON - A 14-year-old New Zealand girl told Tuesday how she beat off a shark which grabbed her in shallow water off a southern beach by hitting it with her body board.

Lydia Ward said she stood on the 1.5-metre shark while body-boarding at Oreti Beach, near Invercargill, Monday evening and it lunged at her, wrapping its jaws around her hip.

As the sand shark’s teeth penetrated her wetsuit and her skin she bashed it with her polystyrene body board until it let go.

She and her brother, who was swimming but not wearing a wetsuit, ran from the water and up the beach to her father, who did not believe her at first.

“But then I showed him my wetsuit with all the blood coming out and he believed me,” she told Radio New Zealand.

She was not seriously hurt but her parents took her to hospital to get the deepest wound treated.

Police patrolled the beach after the attack but the shark was not seen again.

“It was an unfortunate incident but when sea creatures are stood on, people are always at risk,” Senior Sergeant Bruce Terry told the Southland Times newspaper.