An overjoyed father will be reunited with his daughter after she survived a shark attack.

Frankie Gonsalves was bitten while snorkelling off Ascension Island in the South Atlantic and her husband Dean fought off the shark by punching it.

She is due to fly to Britain by tomorrow night and be treated at St Mary’s Hospital, London.

She had been bitten on the calf and foot.

Her father, Irving Benjamin, of High Street, Deal, will visit her there by Thursday.

He said: “It will be a relief to see her again and a relief that she was not more badly injured. If one of her children had been attacked they would have been goners.”

Mr Benjamin said that he and his wife Cate had first heard the horrifying news of the attack when Dean rang them at 11pm last Friday.

He told : “At first we had no idea if she was going to live and we didn’t know how badly injured she was.

“Thankfully there is no vascular or bone damage, it is soft tissue injury, But the shark did take a chunk off her and grafting treatment will be needed.”

Mrs Gonsalves, 40, had been on annual leave and was at the island for a one-night stopover with her husband and their children Louis, seven, and Katie, 10.

They were all en route to Britain to see the Benjamins and other relatives.

The Gonsalves now live on the South Atlantic island of St Helena where Mrs Gonsalves is a social worker.

Straight after the attack she had been taken to Ascension’s tiny one-doctor hospital before being eventually flown by medical plane back to the UK.

Mr Benjamin said that he had been able to talk to his daughter over the phone in the last few days and found that she was in a stable condition.

He said that she had a long way to go to get better but her injuries were not life threatening and it was hoped that she would eventually fully recover.

The species of shark that carried out the attack is unidentified.

Mr Benjamin, 70, who is secretary of the Deal Brass Academy Band, has lived in Deal with his wife Cate, 61, since, 1997.

Mrs Gonsalves was born in Glasgow and has lived most of her life in London.

She and her husband and children visit the Benjamins in Deal as often as four times a year.