Swallowed by Hippo: Video Report Reveals Man's Amazing Fight for Survival From Hippo Attack (VIDEO)
A man has been swallowed by a hippo, but amazingly survived the ordeal and is now telling his extraordinary tale.
Paul Templer, who in fact worked as a river guide on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe, was making his way down the river recently with three other apprentices when he was attacked by a large hippo.
Everything happened so quickly, Templer has now described, saying that he barely realized there was any danger before things were too late.
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He has said that as he was kayaking down the river, one of the apprentices was flung in the air as a hippo emerged from underneath him.
Templer says that he attempted to kayak to the apprentice to help, but as he was frantically making his way to him, he suddenly was plunged into darkness; the hippo had come up behind him and put him in his mouth whole.
He has said the The Guardian newspaper: "There was no transition at all, no sense of approaching danger. It was as if I had suddenly gone blind and deaf."
"I was aware that my legs were surrounded by water, but my top half was almost dry. I seemed to be trapped in something slimy. There was a terrible, sulphurous smell, like rotten eggs, and a tremendous pressure against my chest. My arms were trapped but I managed to free one hand and felt around – my palm passed through the wiry bristles of the hippo's snout. It was only then that I realized I was underwater, trapped up to my waist in his mouth."
Templer was in fact extremely lucky to be alive at this point; hippos have extremely strong mouths and are capable of snapping a human being in half.
Templer amazingly managed to escape from the two ton hippos mouth, but in his frantic attempts to do so he lost his left arm and was left in the water with serious wounds.
He described, "I wriggled as hard as I could, and in the few seconds for which he opened his jaws, I managed to escape. I swam towards Evans, but the hippo struck again, dragging me back under the surface. I'd never heard of a hippo attacking repeatedly like this, but he clearly wanted me dead."
He further explained that the attack was so "savage that my lung was visible."
Templer managed to escape with his life, however, tragically the apprentice's body was only found two days later.
