An Australian man was wading through shallow water when he stepped on a ‘log’ – seconds later, his groin was in the jaws of a saltwater crocodile.
On Saturday, October 26, at around 12.30, Elston Lami Lami was hunting near Minjilang on Croker Island when he faced off against the reptile.
After stepping on what he believed to be a submerged log, the 42-year-old soon realised the severity of his error.
After stepping on the crocodile, it initially stayed still, leaving Lami Lami like a statue figuring out what to do next.
Then, 15 seconds later, the 4.5 metre-long, angry reptile viciously flipped him, launching its teeth into his right leg.
In a bid to free himself from the croc’s grip, he booted it with his other leg. Unfortunately, all he did there was annoy it. The reptile attacked again, this time biting him in the groin. Yikes!
Lami Lami continued to repeatedly punch the wild beast, trying with all his might to get it off him. After his barking dogs and a shouting relative distracted the croc, the 42-year-old made his great escape.
Lami Lami told ABC Darwin:
When he come up, when he flipped me and I looked at his eye, he had that crocodile tears on it. Like… you’re mine. You’re my lunch.
I hit him three times in the nose, he let me go. Come back again, try and attack me. When he snapped at me, I grabbed him, held him at the jaw with two hands and I was getting weak so I thought the only way to get his attention, I had to hit him again.
Lami Lami managed to walk for half an hour back to his car after the attack, before being treated at Minjilang Community Health Centre, where a CareFlight medical response group met him and airlifted him to Royal Darwin Hospital.
Thankfully, Lami Lami remains in a stable condition in hospital.
Over the past few decades, Australia has seen a 20-fold increase in croc attacks. Nile and saltwater crocodiles are considered to be the most dangerous, attributed to the vast majority of all fatal and non-fatal crocodilian attacks.
Recent stats show that more than one person a month has been attacked by a saltwater crocodile, as per The Guardian, with more than half of the attacks resulting in death.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.