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Have you ever been in a situation while travelling where you only realized afterward the magnitude of the danger you were in? A story has come to light which has me reassessing my earlier travels in Africa, where I was blissfully unaware that you can be swallowed by a hippopotamus.
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Former African river guide Paul Templar is getting attention for his video that recounts a 1996 incident where he barely escaped with his life. Templar was on the Zambezi River near Victoria Falls when he encountered a “grouchy bull” hippopotamus. He was swallowed in the attack and spent several minutes inside the beast, which was submerged in the river, before narrowly escaping. He required extensive surgeries to repair his arm, which was stripped of flesh, and bite wounds to several of his organs.
I knew that hippos are deadly and must be treated with a great deal of caution and respect, but the fact that you can be swallowed by one — and most people wouldn’t have survived such a scenario — puts them on a whole different level in my mind.
Find out more about this in The Huffington Post