NEWS24 (Johannesburg, S Africa) 06 February 06 Man pulled from croc's jaws
Harare: A human chain of villagers pulled a hunter from the jaws of a man-eating crocodile in northeastern Zimbabwe, said reports on Monday.
Letikuku Sidumbu, 32, was attacked by the crocodile while trying to cross the swollen Mubvinzi River in Goromonzi district, about 40km east of Harare, during a morning hunting expedition with his uncle.
As the crocodile clenched it jaws on his right arm, a human chain of villagers tugged him from its grip in a struggle that also left him with a broken leg and chest and stomach injuries, Sidumbu told the state Herald newspaper from his hospital bed in Harare.
Crocodiles were the most dangerous animals to man in Zimbabwe.
According to the communal areas management programme, a conservation group, in recorded cases last year, they dragged away and ate 13 people, some of them children.
Sidumbu said: "I called out to my uncle to hit the crocodile with an axe."
But, he said, commotion by the two men's hunting dogs enraged the crocodile. He heard the voices of fellow villagers arriving from nearby Chitana Mafengu to help.
Sidumbu said that before rescuers dragged him free, "one thing was clear that they wanted to salvage at least a piece of my flesh for burial should the crocodile get the better of them".
He said he knew the river was crocodile infested, but "I had safely crossed it many times before, especially at dawn".
Man pulled from croc's jaws