Elise Lavers, 19, saves mate Michael Demasi from Great White attack

TEENAGE adventurer Elise Lavers has been hailed as a hero and her friend Michael Demasi one of the luckiest men alive.

The pair survived a kayaking clash with a 6m great white shark off the Yorke Peninsula.

The drama in Dolphin Bay, in Innes National Park, unfolded late on Wednesday when the friends went kayaking, unaware the calm bay was a known haunt for large sharks.

Mr Demasi, 27, has a small wound on his thigh where the shark pierced his plastic kayak when it bit into it in 40m-deep water.

The Flinders University student thought he had been washed on to rocks by a wave and bailed out of his kayak, only to turn around and see the huge shark treating his boat like a chew toy.

"The shark bit into my thigh and was violently jerking the kayak," he said.

"I didn't know it was a shark so I was relaxed enough to grab my sunnies as I bailed out.

"It wasn't until I came up from the water when I saw a big thing gnawing the kayak.

"It had brought its head out of the water to grab the kayak."

Miss Lavers, 19, having seen the shark, raced to his rescue in her kayak. "Elise saw the whole thing ... she didn't know if I'd been hurt," Mr Demasi said. "She paddled over and I grabbed the back of her kayak.

"I wouldn't have been able to swim fast enough." Read More

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