Random People Who Survived Wild Animal Attacks Tell Their Stories (12 items)

• 

  (#1) An Australian Diver Was Nearly Swallowed By A Great White Shark

  Australian diver Eric Nerhus was nearly swallowed by a 10-foot great white shark while gathering shellfish with his son and some other divers. The shark tried to eat him headfirst, and Nerhus estimates that he spent about two minutes in the shark's mouth. He had this to say during an interview with Australia's Nine Network:

  Half my body was in its mouth. I felt down to the eye socket with my two fingers and poked them into the socket. The shark reacted by opening its mouth, and I just tried to wriggle out. It was still trying to bite me... The big round black eye, 5 inches wide, was staring straight into my face with just not one hint of fear, of any boat, or any human, or any other animal in the sea.

  In the end, a lead-lined vest meant to weigh him down was the only thing that stopped the shark from biting him completely in half. Nerhus was transported to a hospital with severe cuts all over his head and upper body.
• 

  (#2) An Alaskan Hunter Was Attacked By A Kodiak Bear

  In 1999, 69-year-old Alaskan hunter Gene Moe was attacked by a Kodiak brown bear, one of the largest bears in the world. Moe was in the process of skinning a deer when the bear charged him. Too far from his rifle, Moe stood his ground with the only weapon on him: a four-inch Buck knife. He made a split-second decision to shove his knife down the bear's throat. After the bear clamped down on his arm, here's how the fight went:

  It’s like a dog when he bites down, he grabs and twists... I didn't want to look at my arm. I thought it was gone. I had watched a lot of bears when I first came to Alaska. I noticed early on they were mostly right-pawed, like people. I saw that paw coming, and I was ready for it! I stepped back, and he kinda got me across the face and sliced (my) ear in two.

  The fight didn't end there. The animal charged Moe several more times, taking a chunk out of his leg in the process. When the bear charged Moe one final time, he threw a punch straight to its snout, knocking the bear out and breaking his knuckle in the process. Moe then staggered two miles to find the rest of his hunting party, who immediately called in rescue personnel to take him to the closest hospital.
• 

  (#3) A 70-Year-Old Fought Off A Mountain Lion In California

  Jim Hamm and his wife Nell were 70 and 66, respectively, when a cougar jumped out at them while they were hiking through Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in California. It flew out of the trees and landed on the trail in front of them. Jim described what happened as the big cat turned to leap at him again: "That's when I realized I was going to have to fight this thing. I figured I would fight it like I would fight a dog attacking me."

  The animal latched onto his arm, and as he was about to hit it with his free hand, the mountain lion knocked him over and bit off a piece of his scalp. "It was like somebody hit me with a baseball bat. I was dazed. Then I heard my wife yelling for me to fight."

  According to Nell, the cougar made "a desperate, horrible sound like something I've never heard before." She turned and saw her husband on the ground, his head inside the mouth of a wild animal. After picking up a tree limb and striking the mountain lion, Nell said "[it] didn't even flinch, so all I could do was keep hitting and hitting and telling him, 'Fight, Jim, fight.' It was horrible. You can't imagine the horror of such a thing."

  The lion eventually left on its own. Jim and Nell now share their story with other hikers to stress safety and the importance of awareness while on the trail.
• 

  (#4) An American Was Gored By The Tusk Of A Protective Elephant

  American explorer Michael Fay had spent plenty of time in Africa encountering peaceful pachyderms before he was mauled by one. Here's what happened in a national park in Gabon according to an NPR interview with Fay (the story also appeared in National Geographic, as transcribed below):

  I fell right in the trap of classic female elephant crossfire. I just thank God that I had time to turn around, grab those tusks and ride that bronco as long as I could. 

  I (stood) there and try to get her to stop, but she was already within a few meters of me. When she was at about a meter and a half, I decided that she wasn't going to stop, and I turned and ran.

  I tripped on some bushes in the sand and fell, knowing full well that she was bearing right down on me. I turned to face her, and she was already over me and about half way down the trajectory to sticking her tusks through my chest. She missed that first stab, and her tusks were sticking in the sand four inches from my head…and then when she tried to roll on me, I thought, "I'm going to die, I'm going to be squished."

  Fay estimated that the elephant tried to stab him about 15 times. Fay didn't end up dying, though he did suffer a puncture wound to his right bicep. Despite the brush with death, Fay said that his feelings toward elephants won't change.
• 

  (#5) A Tourist Faced A 450-Pound Alligator In Florida

  When James Morrow jumped out of his canoe to go snorkeling in Juniper Creek, FL, he didn't know he was swimming directly above a 450-pound alligator. Here's what happened when the alligator attacked, according to Morrow: "I think my head was so far down his mouth that I touched his taste buds. When he tasted me, I think that's why he let me go."

  Though Morrow could joke about it after the attack, he ended up suffering several head wounds and a punctured lung from the alligator. In the end, he survived because of his snorkel mask, which took most of the damage from the gator's teeth.
• 

  (#6) A Kayaker Fought Off A River Otter With Her Paddle

  When 77-year-old Sue Spector went kayaking in Florida on a peaceful afternoon, she found herself face to face with a potentially rabid river otter. Paddling down the Braden River in a sizable group, Spector was the unlucky one chosen by the otter as it climbed into her kayak and jumped on her. According to Spector:

  I took my paddle, and I tried to get him off of me, and he wouldn't let go, and I kept screaming, I kept beating him with a paddle. When you're [in the middle of] it, you don't have a lot of thought except you hope you survive.

  In the struggle, the otter bit and scratched at Spector's face and head. The kayak flipped, tossing her in the water as she continued to fight off the animal. The otter eventually swam away after Spector's husband started swinging at the animal with his paddle, but Spector still needed stitches and rabies treatment for her injuries. 
• 

  (#7) A Kenyan Farmer Bit A Python That Dragged Him Up A Tree

  Ben Nyaumbe is a farmer from Kenya. He was out one day, tending livestock when this happened:

  I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground, and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python. It waggled its ragged and scary tail on my mouth. I had to bite it as I struggled, one hand incapacitated.

  The snake was able to drag Nyaumbe up a tree. When the snake eased it's grip just enough, Nyaumbe took out his cell phone and called for help. Eventually, rescuers arrived, and both Nyaumbe and the snake "came down, landing with a thud." He was a bit bruised but otherwise okay. The snake, however, later escaped. 
• 

  (#8) A Hunting Guide Was Mauled By A Polar Bear In Canada

  Kootoo Shaw is an experienced hunting guide from Nunavut, Canada. He came face to face with a polar bear when it entered his campsite at four in the morning. Not many people face a polar bear and survive, but Shaw did. He said this about the attack:

  I thought I was going to die; I thought I was going to be gone. He had his claws under my neck for a while, I could hear his breathing, then he let his claws off, and he was still jumping on top me, up and down four times.

  It took 300 stitches to reattach Shaw's scalp, but he was able to recover from the attack, which also included bites and scratches to his back and arms.
• 

  (#9) A Zimbabwean Man Was Gored By A Buffalo On His Own Farm

  In early 2018, villagers in Dete, Zimbabwe, were having trouble with buffalo encroaching on their lands. The wild buffalo were starting to mix in with their cattle herds, leaving farmers with the dangerous task of chasing off the violent animals. Thabani Dube can attest to that danger firsthand after trying to remove a buffalo from his herd:

  When I was grazing cattle, a buffalo came and mixed with my herd. It became difficult to separate it, as it was following cows on heat. As I arrived home on the evening, it also got into the [herd]. It charged and gored my bull, and I was forced to set dogs on it. It became angry and charged at me. I am lucky to be alive because I ran towards a trench and it failed to cross it, but it gored me on the upper shoulder.
• 

  (#10) A 73-Year-Old Kenyan Man Ripped Out A Leopard's Tongue When It Tried To Kill Him

  Kenyan farmer Daniel M'Mburugu was 73 years old when he fended off a leopard. He was working in his potato garden when the leopard came out of the grass and charged him. He described the incident:

  It let out a blood-curdling snarl that made the birds stop chirping. I froze for some seconds, then it dawned on me that death was staring at me on the face. A voice, which must have been from God, whispered to me to drop the panga (machete) and thrust my hand into its wide open mouth. I obeyed.

  Though the leopard dug its teeth into M'Mburugu's wrist, the 73-year-old got the last laugh when he ripped out the leopard's tongue, surviving the attack with quite a trophy.
• 

  (#11) A Canadian Man Wrestled A Timber Wolf

  A jog home from work in Saskatchewan took a dangerous turn for Fred Desjarlais when he faced timber wolf on New Years Eve 2004. Desjarlais described the incident:

  He wasn't a young, healthy (wolf). If he was, he wouldn't have been there. He wouldn't have done what he did. It was just an older wolf that was doing what he had to do to survive, and I just reacted, thank God, the way I did and survived it.

  He reacted by grabbing the wolf around the neck and wrestling it to the ground. Desjarlais was able to hold the wolf down long enough for friends to arrive and chase it away. He received treatment for several bites on his back, leg, arm, and groin. 
• 

  (#12) An American Explorer Was Bitten By A Humboldt Squid

  Scott Cassell is an American explorer, filmmaker, and animal activist. He was once attacked by a Humboldt squid, an animal whose beak is as big as a man's hand. In an interview about the perils of killing sharks, Cassell casually said:

  The most dangerous being I have encountered, besides a lawyer, was a giant Humboldt squid... Imagine being bitten by [a] 100-pound parrot. I was. The bite exposed my skull to the seawater. Talk about painful.  Then, when I pushed it off, it bit my wrist and broke it in 5 places.

  Every suction cup (1200 of them) is lined with cat-like teeth. It got hold of my throat and ripped it open. I super glued my scalp and throat wounds.

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking