Girl, 13, fights off shark attack in Florida

Ella Reed survived the attack and is recovering from bites to her torso, arm, finger, and knee

A 13-year-old girl has managed to fight off a shark after being attacked in Florida waters, according to local reports.

Ella Reed survived the attack and is recovering from bites to her torso, arm, finger, and knee.

The teen, who lives across the street from the beach in Fort Pierce, was attacked by a bull shark while swimming on Thursday, NBC News reported.

“I remember just breathing really heavily, and then when it latched on to my stomach, not being able to breathe at all because I was just like, ‘What the heck is happening?’” Ms Reed told The Today Show.

She said that she used her arm to block the shark's attacks but felt its teeth sink into her torso. Ms Reed then yelled to a friend on the beach, and continued fighting off the shark.

“It bit me in the stomach first. And right as it bit me in the stomach, I shoved my arm where it was biting me so it didn’t get my stomach and it got my arm instead,” she said. “Then I hit it with my other hand, like hit its nose or its face.”

Once she managed to escape the shark, she pulled herself from the water and FaceTimed her brother for help.

Her mother, Devin Reed, told Today that she intially thought her daughter was joking about the attack.

“At first I thought she was joking actually, and then she says, ‘I’m not joking!’ And she took the camera and she panned it on her body, and I kind of just froze and freaked out,” she said. “Her first thing was to tell her friend to run, not ask for help. She was saving her friend.”

The teen was transported off the beach in a golf cart before her mother drover her to hospital.

Ella Reed, 13, shows her torso, which required stitches after a bull shark attacked her off the coast of Florida (screengrab/TODAY)

The teen required 19 stitches, five on her torso and 14 on her leg. While she said that she had struggling to sleep since the attack, she insisted it would not stop her enjoying the beach or deter from her dream job of becoming a marine biologist.

A separate shark attack on a kayaker in Hawaii was captured on video on Thursday.

Scott Haraguich told KITV that he initially thought the shape passing under his kayak was a turtle.

The footage then shows a tiger shark breaching the surface and biting down on the kayak before slipping back into the water. Thankfully, Mr Haraguich’s body was inside the kayak at the time of the attack.

"I heard a whooshing sound that sounded like a boat heading towards me without the motor and I looked up and I saw this big brown thing," he said. "My brain thought it was a turtle but then I got slammed by it and realized that it was a tiger shark."