(NewsNation) — A teenager has described how she punched and fought off two sharks that attacked her while she was on a family vacation in Belize.

Annabelle Carlson, 16 of Colorado, was on a scuba diving trip with her mom three hours off the coast of Belize in August 2024 when she and her siblings decided to jump off their boat.

Carlson jumped off the boat first and told "Elizabeth Vargas Reports" on Friday that as soon as she hit the water, "a shark came from under the boat and started biting my hands."

She reacted quickly and "threw a few punches," explaining that fighting off the beast was her first instinct.

"I didn't really know what was going on, and then it kind of dawned on me that I was being attacked by a shark," Carlson said.

She described the shark as around 6 feet long and

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