A British man has survived a hippo attack after the beast smashed into his canoe during a safari.
Roland Cherry, 63, from Warwickshire, said the hippo threw him through the air ‘like a rag doll’ after it dragged him underwater while he was on a canoe trip on the Kafue River while on holiday in Zambia with his wife Shirley.
He ended up wedged between the hippo’s jaws and suffered major injuries to his thigh and shoulder as well as a 10-inch wound to his abdomen. His injuries required seven surgeries in two weeks.
Mrs Cherry managed to swim to the river bank after she was thrown off the canoe.
‘The hippo could have attacked any one of us and I can’t help feeling if the hippo had… if it had been me, I wouldn’t be here now, so I think Roland took one for the team,’ she told the BBC.
Mr Cherry said after the attack that while he didn’t hate hippos, he was ‘not very fond’ of the animal who attacked him during his canoe safari.
The experienced canoeist said that when the hippo hit the canoe, there was a ‘massive crash’ and the impact caused him and his wife to be thrown into the water.
Mr Cherry said that his shoulder was dislocated and he was unable to swim to safety, so he was a ‘sitting duck’ for the hippo, which swiftly grabbed him and dragged him to the bottom of the river.
‘I do remember thinking “oh no, what a way to go… I’m not ready to die” and I thought this was it, because nobody survives hippo attacks,’ he told the BBC.
Before he could single-arm swim to the safety of shallow water on the bank by the river, the animal grabbed him again.
Mr Cherry told the broadcaster: ‘We know subsequently from fellow travellers I was grabbed again and thrown through the air like a rag doll but towards the bank which was the godsend.
‘I remember looking down at my legs thinking “that’s not good”. There was bits of flesh sticking out of my torn shorts and blood over my abdomen.’
He said that even though he was in the hippo’s jaws, he didn’t see the animal once and only pierced together what happened due to eye witness reports.
Mr Cherry explained that he remembered his wife Shirley calling out for him and ‘friendly arms’ dragging him out after the hippo had launched him towards the river bank.
The attack happened during the third week of the Cherrys’ dream holiday in southern Africa in June.
Doctors in Johannesburg, South Africa, later reportedly told Mr Cherry that he may not have survived had the bite wounds by the hippo been slightly deeper.
He said that nurses added that they have never seen someone who survived a hippo attack, as most end fatally for the victims.
Mr Cherry said that the local hospital where he was taken to immediately after the attack saved his life and has decided to launch a fundraiser for Mtendere Mission Hospital to ‘give back’ as he is ‘forever in their debt’.
He wrote on his JustGiving page: ‘What struck me most from this near death experience was the kindness of strangers.
‘I vowed that assuming I made it home to Warwickshire I would talk about the incident at a fund-raising event for the Mtendere Mission Hospital and see if we can offer something back to the hospital that had almost certainly saved my life.’