Australian man fights off crocodile with pocketknife
November 10, 2021
A 60-year-old fisherman found himself fighting for his life after a crocodile pulled him into a river. Authorities said the man was "lucky to be alive." He even drove himself to the nearest hospital afterward.
A man in Australia managed to beat the odds and free himself from the grip of an attacking crocodileImage: M. Henning/picture alliance
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A fishing trip for a 60-year-old man in northern Australia turned into a life-or-death experience when a crocodile suddenly attacked, local authorities said on Wednesday.
The man was able to fend off the apex predator in the end with some quick thinking and his trusty pocketknife.
What happened?
The man was out fishing on a remote river in the northern Cape York Peninsula when the attack occurred.
He'd positioned himself on a riverbank and was shooing away cattle when the crocodile suddenly struck.
"He described seeing the crocodile seconds before it lunged at him, knocking him over as he was about to cast his fishing rod," Queensland's state environment department said in a statement.
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The 4-meter (13-foot) crocodile chomped down on the man's boots and, after a brief back-and-forth, pulled the man into the water.
Just as he went under, the man reached for a pocketknife in his belt and "stabbed the crocodile in its head until it let him go."
"The odds of doing that are about zero," said the state environment department's Matt Brien.
Why did the crocodile attack?
Wildlife officials believe that the croc was targeting the bovine bull on the riverbank when the 60-year-old man happened to get in the way.
"It appears that the crocodile was targeting the bull or the cow at the time, and he's just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time," Brien said.
'A real Crocodile Dundee'
Astonishingly, the man managed to crawl up the riverbank following the attack and even drive himself to the nearest hospital — where he was then transported for further treatment to a hospital in Cairns, around five hours away.
While hailed in local media as "a real Crocodile Dundee," authorities made clear that the near-death experience was no laughing matter.
Although he is now in stable condition, the 60-year-old is "quite traumatized" by the attack.
"It's an absolutely harrowing experience. He won't forget that in a long time," Brien said.
Locals and tourists alike have been warned to steer clear of waterways known to be inhabited by saltwater crocodiles. Once hunted to the verge off extinction, the massive reptiles' population numbers have been booming ever since being declared a protected species in 1971.
rs/msh (AFP, dpa)
Sharks and scorpions? The world's deadliest animals aren't what you thought
People are terrified of sharks but when you look at the number of people actually killed by them, you realize that the truly dangerous killers are others.
Image: AP
11. Sharks / wolves
People killed each year: around ten. Sharks and wolves scare many people. And there is no doubt that wolves and some shark species can kill you. But very few of them actually do. Each year there are only around ten deaths caused by either species throughout the world. You have a bigger chance of being killed by your toaster.
Image: AP
10. Lions / elephants
People killed each year: around 100. That you could be killed by a lion doesn't seem far-fetched and it does happen. Perhaps more surprising is that your chances of falling victim to an elephant are just as high. The world's largest land animal can be quite aggressive and once it becomes enraged, it certainly has the mass and strength to be dangerous.
Image: picture alliance / blickwinkel/D. u. M. Sheldon
9. Hippopotamus
People killed each year: around 500. There are countless children's toys in the shape of hippos and why wouldn't there be? They look cute with their puffy snouts and stocky builds. And they are herbivores. But don't let that fool you. They are territorial and quite aggressive and don't need provocation to come after you, so steer clear if you can.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa-Zentralbild
8. Crocodiles
People killed each year: around 1,000. Many people are probably just as scared of crocodiles as they are of sharks or lions and rightfully so. Crocodiles are carnivores and kill prey sometimes much larger than themselves including small hippos, water buffalo and, in the case of saltwater crocodiles, even sharks.
Image: Fotolia/amnachphoto
7. Tapeworms
People killed each year: around 2000. Tapeworms are parasitic flatworms that live in the digestive tracts of all sorts of vertebrates ranging from whales to mice, and humans as well. They usually find their way into our bodies as eggs or larvae via contaminated food. The infection can be treated with medication but the parasites still kill 200 times as many people as sharks do.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Loznak
6. Ascaris roundworms
People killed each year: around 2,500. Ascaris worms are another parasite contracted in a way similar to tapeworms. But they don't stay in the intestinal tract. Once the eggs hatch, they burrow through the gut wall, travel to the lungs, up the windpipe, are coughed up and swallowed again to return to the intestine where they grow into adults. Ascariasis affects around 1 billion people worldwide.
People killed each year: around 10,000. Tied in fifth place are three killers with a death toll of 10,000 each. Although to be fair, it's not the animals that are the killers here, but the parasites they carry. Schistosomiasis can be contracted from contaminated water, Chagas disease and sleeping sickness through insect bites. So make sure to bring bug repellant when you visit affected areas.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
4. Dog (rabies)
People killed each year: around 25,000. Rabies is a viral infection that can be contracted from many different animals but in countries where rabies is common among dogs, humans get it from them in 99 percent of cases. And rabies is sneaky. It can take months for symptoms to show and when they do, the disease is almost always fatal. The good news is that both dogs and humans can be vaccinated.
Image: picture-alliance/ZB/B. Wüstneck
3. Snakes
People killed each year: around 50,000. Yes: In case of doubt, steer clear of snakes. Many species aren't deadly, some aren't venomous at all but there are enough deadly snakes to make these reptiles the world's third biggest killer.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/blickwinkel/B. Trapp
2. Humans
People killed each year: around 475,000. Yes, we made the list, too. After all, we are incredibly creative when it comes to finding ways to kill each other. This earns us the sad honor of second place amongst the killers of man.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
1. Mosquitoes
People killed each year: around 725,000. In places like Germany, they are just a nuisance, elsewhere they can be harbingers of death. And again it is the diseases they carry, not the animals themselves that kill. Malaria alone kills about 600,000 people a year. Dengue fever, yellow fever and encephalitis are transmitted by mosquitoes too, making the tiny insects the world's biggest killers.
