A teenager has fought off a shark attack by punching the animal in the face after it grabbed her leg while she was swimming.

Caitlyn Taylor was attacked in the Gulf Of Mexico near the town of Destin in Florida's Panhandle.

Witnesses said the 17-year-old, from Louisville in Kentucky, was bitten by a shark about 5ft in length in waist-deep water.

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Emergency services took her to a nearby hospital where she had 80 stitches in puncture wounds near her right knee and also suffered scratches on her left leg.


"She turned around and the head of it was coming towards her with a wave and she said she turned to swim back to shore," her mother Tracey Taylor told WHAS-11 News.

That is when the teenager felt the shark "just grab her and lift her off of the bottom".

She turned and punched the shark in the face and it released her, she added.

The teenager, who was in the town for a softball tournament, had "fairly minor" injuries, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office.

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Witnesses said she was lucky to escape without more serious injuries.

"She was bleeding pretty good. She was lucky it didn't get her femoral artery because that could have been really serious," said tourist Francis Thelen.

While the type of shark is unknown, the location, near an offshore sandbar, is known to be a popular feeding hole for sharks.

Multiple Facebook users said sharks, including bull sharks - known as one of the most aggressive sharks - are frequently spotted in the area.