Teen hit back at shark during attack

A teenage girl attacked by a shark in Tasmania bravely hit back at the man-eater and screamed for help, her elder cousin and rescuer says.

Hannah Mighall, 13, from Scamander, was dragged under the water several times by a 5m shark at Binalong Bay, near St Helens, in Tasmania's north east about 3.45pm (AEDT) on Sunday.

Scamander is coastal hamlet near Binalong Bay.

Hannah suffered severe lacerations to a leg and is recovering in the Royal Hobart Hospital.

Her cousin, Queenslander Syb Mundy, 33, who was paddling nearby on his surfboard, helped fight off the shark and took Hannah to safety.

"She came up and was fighting the shark and hitting it and screaming `help me, help me, help me'," Mr Mundy told Launceston's The Examiner newspaper.

"It took her under the water a couple of times and it was thrashing her around, but she kept her head together," Mr Mundy told Macquarie Radio.

"Once it let her go she was bleeding pretty bad. There was a lot of blood in the water."

He paddled to her rescue and hit the shark on the head.

"I can remember seeing the eye come out of the water and the head and I was going to try and poke it in the eye if I could get close enough," Mr Mundy said.

The shark let go of her leg but then it grabbed her surfboard, which was tethered to her ankle, before it let go for the last time, he said.

"I think it just didn't like the taste of her, to tell you the truth."

Mr Mundy said they were up to 70m from the beach and saw an opportunity to get away from the shark.

"Luckily a wave come along and she was on my back and I said, `Hannah please, this wave is going to save your life, don't let go'," he said.

"But the shark actually got on to the wave. We looked to our left and this thing started surfing towards us and we just headed straight to the beach."

Senior Sergeant Jason Elmer said at one stage the pair caught a wave, but the shark was in the same wave.

"There's a significant bite out of the surfboard.

"I understand there was a fair bit of blood in the water."

Witness Ian Hollingsworth said Mr Mundy saved Hannah's life.

"The shark took three bites from her leg, I could see it was dragging her backwards and trying to get her under the water," Mr Hollingsworth told Hobart's The Mercury newspaper.

"Her cousin was brilliant. I can't give him enough praise. He literally pulled her out of the shark's jaws and saved her life.

"He was fighting the shark and fighting to grab hold of her.

"It was like something out of a Jaws movie. It was just terrifying."

Mr Hollingsworth was surfing just 30m away from Ms Mighall when the shark struck.

Mr Mundy pulled his cousin onto his surfboard and caught a wave to shore, Mr Hollingsworth said.

"When we were heading to the shore, the shark kept circling us all. It was the worst feeling in the world," he said.

When the three surfers got to the shore, dozens of onlookers rushed to their aid.

Surf Life Saving Tasmania spokesman Alex Deane said there had been 21 recorded shark attacks over the past 200 years in Tasmanian waters, with five of them proving fatal.

SeaWorld shark expert Trevor Long says that shark nets are effective but they are not an absolute barrier.

Shark nets along the Gold Coast in Queensland, where he worked, were effective but not absolute.

"The shark nets are around about 600m long and they're about 5m deep and the sharks can swim all around them," he said.

"Unfortunately what it does is creates a perception that there is a net between the people who swim and the sharks.

"In actual fact that's not the case."

Mr Long said the shark which followed Hannah into shore was typical of the species.

"That's a shark that's quite tenacious if it gets a taste of blood, gets a taste of food," he said.

"They don't really let up, they'll stay in there and try and get the rest of it. So that person was very, very, very lucky."