A teenage girl fought off a 5-foot shark with a punch in the face after it grabbed her by the leg off the Florida panhandle on Sunday, authorities said.

Caitlyn Taylor, 17, needed 80 stitches for six puncture wounds to her right leg she sustained while swimming at a Destin, Florida, beach, according to her mom. She also had scrapes on her left leg.

Taylor, visiting from Lexington, Kentucky, was swimming in the waist-deep water around 3:30 p.m. when she saw what she initially thought was a dolphin headed toward her, the Okaloosa County Sheriffs Office said in a release.

She turned around and the head of it was coming towards her with a wave and she said she turned to swim back to shore, her mother, Tracey Taylor, told WHAS-11 News.