Tourist Attacked by Hippo Relives Moment It ‘Grabbed’ Him 'in Its Jaws': ‘I'm Not Ready to Die’

Mar. 15, 2025

A stock photo of a hippo.Photo:Getty

Getty

A 63-year-old man is thankful to be alive following a hippo attack in Zambia, Africa.

Roland said the couple was on a five-week camping safari through Southern Africa and had been having a “fabulous time” before the incident, according to the site.

Four days into the second three-week leg of the tour — which took them from Victoria Falls through Zambia, Malawi and then down the Mozambique coast to South Africa — Roland and his wife had been in the second of five kayaks when they felt an “almighty bang” as the hippo lifted their canoe “out of the water.”

A stock photo of the Kafue National Park.Getty

Shirley managed to swim to the riverbank, but Roland’s shoulder had got dislocated in the attack. “The hippo grabbed me in its jaws and took me under to the bottom of the river. Although I never saw the hippo, I thought that my time was up!” he said on the Just Giving page.

“When the hippo first hit the canoe, there was a massive crash, much like a car crash really,” Roland told theBBCof the incident.

“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 added to the outlet.

“We know subsequently from fellow travelers I was grabbed again and thrown through the air like a rag doll but towards the bank which was the godsend,” Roland continued, per the outlet.

“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 said.

“I was badly mauled with severe bite wounds to both my legs and my left side, my left upper arm and a dislocated right shoulder. I was in a very bad way…” he wrote on his Just Giving page.

A stock photo of hippos in the Kafue River in Zambia.DeAgostini/Getty

DeAgostini/Getty

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Roland was taken to the nearest village, Chirundu, which was about 25 minutes away, before he received treatment which “undoubtedly saved” his “life” at the Mtendere Mission General Hospital.

“As soon as we arrived, this little African hospital swung into action. Without thinking twice or asking for my insurance details, they assessed the hippo damage and whisked me into theater to clean my wounds,” Roland recalled on his Just Giving page. “If they hadn’t acted so promptly there is a strong likelihood that sepsis would have set in which could have proved fatal. I can think of no better illustration of ‘the kindness of strangers.’ "

The keen naturalist was eventually flown from Zimbabwe to Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, where he received “first class” treatment “from the A-Team,” he said on his page.

Roland is now continuing his recovery at home in Tysoe, Warwickshire, reported U.K. newspaperThe Times. He is also raising money for the non-profit institutionMtendere Mission Hospital.

“While recovering in my hospital bed, I had time to think and reflect on the incident. What struck me most from this near-death experience was the kindness of strangers,” Roland said on his Just Giving page.

“I vowed that assuming I made it home to Warwickshire I would talk about the incident at a fund-raising event for the Mtendere Mission Hospital and see if we can offer something back to the hospital that had almost certainly saved my life,” he added.

Roland — whose page has raised over $20,000 so far — has since learned that the hippo who attacked him was a female protecting her 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, perThe Times. “I certainly don’t hate hippos — I’m not very fond of what one did to me.”

“I was in its jaws and I didn’t see it once,” Roland continued to the BBC. “We have eyewitness accounts of that happening — but I was never conscious of that.”

source: people.com