A British tourist has described how he was thrown through the air “like a rag doll” when he was attacked by a hippopotamus.
Businessman Roland Cherry, 63, and his wife Shirley were on a river safari in Zambia when a hippo struck their canoe and dragged him to the bottom of the water.
He told the BBC he was lucky to be alive following his ordeal, but held no grudge against the animals.
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“When the hippo first hit the canoe, there was a massive crash, much like a car crash really,” he said.
The impact caused the pair to be thrown out of the canoe.
While his wife swam to safety, Roland suffered a shoulder injury after being thrown into the river and struggled to swim to the bank.
The hippo then dragged 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 said.
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“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.”
Roland made it to shallow water on the river bank, but the angry hippo wasn’t finished with him.
“I was grabbed again and thrown through the air like a rag doll but towards the bank which was the godsend,” he said.
Help arrived and he put on a motor boat and taken back to the safari camp before being treated at the nearby Mtendere Mission Hospital.
He later underwent seven operations for shoulder, stomach and leg injuries in hospital in South Africa, where nurses told him survivors of hippo attacks were extremely rare.
Roland later learned the female hippo had been guarding its calf when the attack occurred and said he appreciated the safari group had been in the animal’s habitat.
Roland and Shirley Cherry have launched a fundraising page for the Mtendere Mission Hospital.
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