Roland Cherry, 63, from Warwickshire was enjoying a canoe ride with his wife in Zambia when he was suddenly set up by the enormous animal that teared at his flesh
A British man attacked by a hippo in Africa has spoken about his terrifying ordeal.
Roland Cherry, 63, a marketing Director from Middle Tysoe, near Stratford-upom-Avon, was on the holiday of a lifetime in Zambia with his wife Shirely when a hidden hippo emerged from the depths to hit the couple’s canoe and fling them into the water. The giant beast then dragged Roland underwater in its fearsome jaws before throwing him into the air.
The couple were in the third week of their dream trip when disaster struck on the Kafue River. Mr Cherry suffered a 10-inch (25cm) wound to his abdomen, plus a thigh injury and dislocated shoulder with medics telling him he was lucky to be alive.
He said: “When the hippo first hit the canoe, there was a massive crash, much like a car crash really. 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.
“The instructions were to swim to safety but I couldn’t swim so I was really a sitting duck, trying to swim with one arm which was never going to end well – and then it grabbed me.”
He was then dragged to the bottom of the river. Mr Cherry explained: “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 he then remembered being sat in shallow water on the bank, but was grabbed again. He explained: “We know subsequently from fellow travellers I was grabbed again and thrown through the air like a rag doll but towards the bank which was the godsend.
“I remember looking down at my legs thinking ‘that’s not good’. There was bits of flesh sticking out of my torn shorts and blood over my abdomen.”
He added: “I was in its jaws and I didn’t see it once – we have eye witness accounts of that happening – but I was never conscious of that.”
Mr Cherry said he remembered his wife calling for him and “friendly arms” dragging him before he was put on a motor boat and taken back to camp. His wife Shirley revealed she had managed to swim to the riverbank, meaning the hippo went for her husband.
She explained: “I did see him surface and I think he took a gulp, and then I thought I saw him being thrown in the air. The hippo could have attacked any one of us and I can’t help feeling if the hippo had… if it had been me, I wouldn’t be here now, so I think Roland took one for the team.”
Hospital staff in Johannesburg, South Africa, told him if the wounds had been slightly deeper he may not have survived. Hippos are one of the deadliest animals in the world causing approximately 500 deaths per year compared to just 22 for the much feared Lion.
Zoologists say this is because they are very aggressive and territorial and have a habit of charging at boats and capsizing them. The people on board then either drown or are killed by the animals themselves.
Nurses also told Mr Cherry they had never met a survivor of a hippo attack as most were usually fatal. He is now recovering from the attack after having had seven operations across a period of more than two weeks, but he felt his earliest treatment by Mtendere Mission Hospital near to where the attack happened had saved his life.
He is now raising money for the hospital through a JustGiving page. He said: “I’m forever in their debt which is why I’m raising money to try and see what I can give back. They’ve given me an awful lot – a second chance at life and I need to give back to them.”
He also said he appreciated the group had been in the hippo’s natural habitat and subsequently had learnt his attacker was a protective female with a calf.
“We were there to see the natural world and we wanted to see, but I didn’t want to see that close up,” he said. He said he did not hate hippos since he was “conscious we were in their territory” while in the water, but he was “not very fond of what [one] did to me”.
