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A teenage girl escaped a terrifying “Jaws-like” shark attack after being thrown from her kayak and hunted by a 15-foot beast.

Sarah Williams was tossed into the air when the predator - which had been circling her - rammed her vessel.

The 15-year-old escaped with minor injuries but said the attack was “everything you picture in the Jaws movie”.

After she was toppled into the sea, she was hauled by her brother onto a family boat, which was travelling alongside her off the Southern Australian coast.

She had been fishing for squid when the sea-beast - believed to be a great white - struck.

(Image: Channel Nine)

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

Her helpless dad Chris watched in horror from the nearby motorboat and said the “ferocious” shark should be hunted and killed.

“Sarah — she had been thrown into the air and just come down into the water, and 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,” he told ABC Radio.

“It was going to eat her... 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.

(Image: Getty)

“To hear the spine-chilling screams from your daughter is just indescribable.”

Adrienne Clarke, the teenager’s mum, was kayaking with a friend about 100m away and saw the chaos unfold.

She said the shark continued to attack the family’s small motor boat after Sarah was pulled into it.

“The shark then followed the kayak while it was roped to our motorised boat for about 10 minutes trying to come back at it, but eventually gave up,” she said.

(Image: Channel Nine)

“My son, who was in the motorised boat, said it was the same length as the kayak…The worst thing that has come of it is she has lost her phone and her sound system, and she’s gone home with both of her legs.”

Australia has seen a growing number of shark attacks in recent years, including several fatalities.

The attack in South Australia prompted calls for a cull – a move resisted by the state government.

“The question of culls is a complex one,” said Jay Weatherill, the state premier.

“It’s difficult to create a system of culling which doesn’t implicate other species such as turtles, dolphins and other marine animals.”