A man swallowed up to his waist by a hippo has shared the secret to surviving such a situation.
Former tour guide Paul Templer was 28 when he was attacked by a massive hippo when conducting a tour in his native Zimbabwe.
He had done time in the British Army and had recently returned to working as a guide in 1996, he toldCNN Travel.
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He was leading a canoe safari down the Zambezi River: “I loved that stretch of the river. It was an area I know like the back of my hand.”
Six people were on the tour along with three apprentice guides, split across three three-person canoes and a one person safety kayak.
“Things were going the way they were supposed to go,” he added. “Everyone was having a pretty good time.”
They were surprised to come across roughly a dozen hippos – they weren’t normally found on the River Zambezi.
The plan was to go around, but it didn't go well. His canoe was at the front but the others fell behind – he doesn't know how that happened, the outlet reports.
“Suddenly, there’s this big thud," he said. "And I see the canoe, like the back of it, catapulted up into the air. And Evans, the guide in the back of the canoe, catapulted out of the canoe.”
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They got the tourists to safety and went back for Evans but then things went wrong for Templer too.
He said he saw a torpedo-like bow wave heading his way and knew it was either a hippo or a big crocodile.
Templer explained: “I slapped the water, and as it was supposed to do, the torpedo wave stops.”
It wasn’t enough though. “Happened so fast I didn’t see a thing,” he added.
He said everything went dark and “weirdly quiet” as he tried to figure out what had just happened.
He said: “From the waist down, I could feel the water. I could feel I was wet in the river. From my waist up, it was different.
"I was warm, and it wasn’t wet like the river, but it wasn’t dry either. And it was just incredible pressure on my lower back. I tried to move around; I couldn’t.
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“I realised I was up to my waist down a hippo’s throat.”
But he got lucky: “I’m guessing I was wedged so far down its throat it must have been uncomfortable because he spat me out.
“So I burst to the surface, sucked a lungful of fresh air and I came face to face with Evans, the guide who I was trying to rescue. And I said, ‘We got to get out of here!’”
Evans still needed help so he swam for him, but was eaten again: “WHAM! – I got hit from below. So once again, I’m up to my waist down the hippo’s throat. But this time my legs are trapped but my hands are free.”
It spat him out again – but the hippo kept coming.
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“I’m making pretty good progress and I’m swimming along there and I come up for the stroke and swimming freestyle and I look under my arm – and until my dying day I’ll remember this – there’s this hippo charging in towards me with his mouth wide open bearing in before he scores a direct hit.”
Third time around he ended up sideways in its gob as it tried to rip him apart.
“For me, fortunately everything was happening in slow motion. So when he’d go underwater, I’d hold my breath," he said.
He said when the hippo surfaced he'd draw a big breath.
Incredibly he was saved by one of the other tour guides, Mack.
“Showing incredible bravery, risking his life to save mine – pulls his boat in inches from my face. Mack dragged me to the relative safety of this rock,” he recalled.
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He was severely injured, with punctured lungs and holes in various parts of his body, losing his left arm to the attack – Evans however, drowned.
Discussing how to survive an attack he added: “Typically if a hippo is going to be attacking, you’ll see it coming way before. There will be that bow wave. … If you slap the water, the percussion 99.9 times out of 100 will turn the hippo.
“If you’re in a canoe and a hippo knocks you in the water, get away from the canoe. The hippo is going for this big shape, getting it off its territory.”
He said to try not to panic: “When dragged underwater. Remember to suck in air if on the surface.”
He still recommends safari though: “My biggest counsel would be: Absolutely go and do it. But hook yourself up with someone who knows what they’re doing out there. But by all means, go out … and experience it.”
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