British teenager tears from crocodile’s mouth: ‘I didn’t think so’

“We sometimes hear people say that at such a moment they see their whole life pass by,” says Amélie Osborn-Smith. “I didn’t have that. I didn’t think so. I just wanted to let go.”

From her hospital bed in Zambia, she recounts the attack:

Amelie was visiting her grandmother in Zambia as part of a gap year, her father Brent told the UK newspaper The sun. Last week, she and other students took a rafting trip on the Zambezi River, near the famous Victoria Falls.

During the lunch break, the guides encouraged the students to swim and cool off in what they believed to be safe water. The group did it and at first glance nothing seemed wrong, but when Amélie swam to the boat things took a turn for the worse and a crocodile grabbed her by the foot.

Three meters

“She fought back with courage and did all she could to avoid being dragged away,” Brent said. From the boat, the others tried to distract the ten foot crocodile. “Due to the swift actions of everyone on board, the crocodile interrupted the attack and Amelie was quickly pulled aboard.”

With a mutilated leg, dislocated hip and almost hanging foot, she was taken by helicopter to the nearest hospital. There she received first aid. He was then taken to a larger hospital in the capital. “She was calm the entire time and didn’t shed a tear,” her father says.

‘A lot of chance’

She has been operated on several times in the hospital. In the end, the doctors were able to save her foot. Something she would never have thought of. “I had already accepted at the time that I would lose my footing. I thought I would never be able to walk again. I was very lucky.”

Over the next few days, Amélie will be returning to the UK for further surgeries. “She is severely traumatized and is taking medication. In the next few days, we will know how she really is.”