WELLINGTON - A 14-year-old New Zealand girl escaped serious injury in a shark attack by furiously beating the creature about the head with her body board until it let go, it was reported Tuesday.

Lydia Ward said she was in waist-deep water near the southern city of Invercargill when the shark lunged at her and wrapped its jaws around her hip. She told Radio New Zealand she bashed the "big, grey, slippery thing" with her polystyrene body board and fled from the water when it let go.

"I showed Dad and he didn't really believe me but then I showed him my wetsuit with all the blood coming out and he believed me," she told Radio New Zealand.

Her mother, Fiona Ward, told the Southland Times that Lydia thought she had stood on the shark before it attacked and that its teeth penetrated her wetsuit and her skin.

Lydia required hospital treatment for two of the deeper wounds, however she was not seriously injured, Fiona Ward said.

The girl's brother, who was swimming next to her, estimated the shark was about 1.5 metres (5 feet) long.