Despite being attacked by a saltwater crocodile, a French fisherman was almost immediately back up on his boat and ready to keep fishing in Darwin, Australia on Monday, April 22. The attack itself — which left the lucky survivor with a stitched-up neck — took place on Sunday, April 21.
The 29-year-old fisherman, Yoann Galeran, was swimming in a remote part of the ocean off Australia's coastline when the saltwater croc decided to take a small bite out of the survivor's neck.
Galeran says he was swimming a short distance from the shore to his dinghy when the crocodile lunged for his head and neck, trying to drown the fisherman via a "death roll."
"It went straight away to the top of my head and diving under the water he tried to do that spinning thing," Galeran said, according to the Associated Press. "It was going so fast — everything happened in less than five seconds and then I fell free," Galleran said, adding that he was "very lucky."
Had the crocodile been any bigger, Galeran feels, he "wouldn't be talking to [us] now."
"Had it been a four meter (13 foot) or bigger crocodile, there would have been a 100 percent chance that he'd be dead now," Chief Scientist at Darwin's Crocodylus Park Crocodile Farm Charlie Manolis said.
Galeran received several stitches in his neck and head after being taken to a hospital in Nhulunbuy, a remote mining town near where the attack took place. Galeran was further lucky that his fishing boat skipper, Craig van Lawick, realized he wasn't joking right after the attack once van Lawick saw the blood.
The crocodile that attacked Galeran was 2 meters (6 feet, seven inches) in length. According to Associated Press, the reptiles can grow to be 6 meters (20 feet) in length and have become more proliferate along the Australian coastline since becoming protected in 1971 by federal law.
Like what you're reading? Follow @profklickberg.
