A resident of the city of Kariba in Zimbabwe has survived four crocodile attacks. Despite this, he refuses to give up fishing, according to the local newspaper The Sunday Mail.
The first attack took place in 1996. The crocodile grabbed 39-year-old Raphael Francisco by the leg and pulled him into the water, but the man managed to fight back.
Due to injury, Francisco was hospitalized for three months and returned to fishing only two years later. In 1999, he was again attacked by a reptile. “The water was only knee-deep, so we thought it was safe there,” he recalls. “But the crocodile jumped on me from two meters and grabbed the same leg that suffered last time.” This time, the fisherman was rescued by his comrades.
Francisco spent two months in the hospital and after this incident he only fished from the shore. The precautions did not help: just a few months later, he was again in the teeth of the crocodile. The man was taken to hospital with severe injuries in the lower abdomen. He was discharged after four months and has been suffering from impotence ever since.
In 2018, a crocodile attacked Francisco for the fourth time. The predator ripped open his stomach and then grabbed his chest with his teeth. “I remember he drags me into the water, and I look at the sky and whisper to myself that now I am finished.” But he was rescued again. The man was in the hospital for six months.
His wife, children and friends have repeatedly persuaded Francisco to find another income, but he does not listen to them. “Fishing is my life,” he says. “I dropped out of school after the third grade and have been working in this field since the age of 15. This is the only craft I know. I cannot give it up, despite numerous attacks by crocodiles.”
In Zimbabwe, Nile crocodiles … They grow up to five meters in length, are extremely aggressive and can handle even such large and strong animals as the black rhino, hippo, giraffe, African buffalo and lion.
In 2019 it was reported that a crocodile attacked a fisherman in Jamaica and grabbed his head. The man managed to escape. He claimed to have survived ten crocodile attacks in his life.