Shark attack: Teenager, 13, bitten at Florida beach

Ella Reed, 13, was swimming in waist-deep water at North Hutchinson Island last Thursday when she felt the shark (believed to be a bull shark) latch onto her stomach.

Ella managed to flee the water but needed 19 stitches after the beast mauled her stomach, finger, arm and leg.

“I just remember seeing its head come up and bite me in the stomach,” she told 7NEWS.

“I hit it its nose or face or something with my other hand and my finger slipped into its mouth.

“All I was thinking of doing was hitting it and getting it away from me, and then once it was off me, running,” she said.

“It didn’t really hurt in the first bit because all the adrenaline … we were so shocked.”

Ella ran onto the beach where a friend rushed her home in a golf cart.

Her mum Devin was horrified when her daughter turned up covered in blood.

She bundled her into a car and raced to the nearest hospital where doctors praised Ella for fighting back.

Ella is recovering at home but says she can’t wait to get back into the water once her stitches are out.

Ella spoke out about her ordeal after Simon Baccanello was attacked by a shark near Elliston, in South Australia, on Saturday.

The popular teacher was surfing when he was was dragged underwater by a shark.

He is believed to have been killed in the attack, although emergency services are yet to locate his body.

Mr Baccanello had only just moved to Elliston in January, taking up a position as a school teacher at Elliston Area School.

The school’s principal, Chad Fleming, said Mr Baccanello was one of the most “kind, caring and inspiring teachers” he’d ever met.

“He was just an absolute gem of a bloke, an absolutely dedicated teacher,” he said.