A fun trip for a 63-year-old man and his wife to Zambia turned into a horror show when a hippo attacked the couple's canoe. The animal dragged Roland Cherry underwater and tossed him into the air like a rag doll. The attack caused significant injuries, but thankfully, he survived the nightmarish ordeal.
Recalling the attack:
Cherry told the BBC that they were on Kafue River when the tragedy left him lodged between a hippo’s jaw. "When the hippo first hit the canoe, there was a massive crash, much like a car crash really," he told the outlet.
"I remember surfacing, realising my shoulder was quite badly injured and I realised I'd dislocated it from the outset and the consequences were that I couldn't actually swim,” he said, adding, "The instructions were to swim to safety but I couldn't swim so I was really a sitting duck, trying to swim with one arm which was never going to end well - and then it grabbed me."
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He recalled that he kept thinking, “I don’t want to die”, and thought “, That's not good” when he saw blood over his abdomen at one point during the attack.
Wife’s account of the horror:
{{/usCountry}}He recalled that he kept thinking, “I don’t want to die”, and thought “, That's not good” when he saw blood over his abdomen at one point during the attack.
Wife’s account of the horror:
{{/usCountry}}"I did see him surface and I think he took a gulp, and then I thought I saw him being thrown in the air," Cherry’s wife, Shirley, said.
"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 added.
Injuries suffered:
As per the outlet, Cherry suffered a 10-inch wound to his abdomen. He also has a dislocated shoulder and a thigh injury. The hospital staff where he was treated considered this his lucky escape, adding that he wouldn’t have survived the attack if his injuries were even a little bit deeper.
“Don’t hate hippos”
Cherry shared that he was "conscious we were in their territory" while navigating the river. He added that he was "not very fond of what [one] did to me".
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Are hippos deadly?
According to an article published by the BBC titled “10 deadliest animals to humans—you don't want to get too close,” hippopotamuses kill more humans than predators like lions.
The deadly land mammals reportedly cause 500 deaths annually. They are known to be aggressive and very territorial, often making them charge at boats and capsize them. The hippos, weighing an average of 1,500 kg (males), often kill people on board by drowning or biting with their large, sharp teeth.