Saltwater crocodile … watch out for danger.Photo: © Tourism NT
A man went toe-to-toe with a crocodile — and survived.
“The water had receded and it was down to this dirty water in the middle. I took two steps and [the crocodile] latched onto my right foot,” Deveraux recalled to ABC News. “It was a big grab and he shook me like a rag doll and took off back into the water, pulling me in.”
However, the farmer would not let the creature win without a fight, so he kicked the creature in the ribs with his other foot and even tried to bite the animal back. By a lucky twist of fate, he said he managed to bite the crocodile in a way that made it release him.
He said the whole incident happened in about eight seconds. Once the crocodile let go, that was all he needed to escape the situation, and he “leapt away and took off with great steps up to where my car was” — all with the crocodile trailing behind.
“He chased me for a bit, maybe [13 feet], but then stopped,” Deveraux told ABC News.
However, he noted that he had an open wound on his right leg from where the crocodile bit him and needed to immediately address it before anything else, using a towel and some rope to create a makeshift tourniquet to help staunch the bleeding.
His brother was able to eventually get to him and take him to Royal Darwin Hospital, located 80 miles north of where he was, per theBBC. That is where he has been staying for the past month in order to receive treatment for the injury.
He said the biggest problem with the wound was that it was infected with “all the bad bacteria” from the murky waters where the crocodile rose from.
“[My leg] was opened up [badly] and over ten days in a row, I think, they had to flush it,” Deveraux said, though he noted that he was lucky the crocodile bit him on his leg as opposed to anywhere else.
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“If [the crocodile] had bitten me somewhere else, it would have been different,” he added.
He told ABC News that while the crocodile was “removed” from the area, the memories from the attack have stayed with him and have helped him look at his life differently: “It means I’ve got to change what I do. I’ve been walking around that swamp country too long fixing fences and living life, but it’s opened my eyes.”
source: people.com
