A UK teen is lucky to be alive after a crocodile grabbed her leg and tried to drag her under the water while she was whitewater rafting on the Zambezi river in Zambia last week.
Since the news of the horrific incident Medland Hospital in Zambia, where 18-year-old Amelie Osborn-Smith was being treated, has received well wishes and enquiries as to how the teen is doing from around the world.
The BBC reported that Amelie and her friends managed to fight off the crocodile after it attempted to drag her down under water into a characteristic “death roll” which left her with a badly mauled lower leg, a dislocated hip and a badly injured right foot.
According to Sky News, the teen was resting her leg over the side of the boat when the crocodile bit her.
The teen was evacuated to Medland Hospital, where she underwent surgical procedures by the trauma unit led by the medical director Dr Collin West.
Amelie spoke to Medland Hospital’s Dr Mohamed El Sahili in a video released on the hospital’s Facebook page earlier this week.
The recovering teen, who was scheduled to travel back to the UK this week, said she feels very lucky.
She said when the crocodile bit her, she did not see her life flash before her eyes but rather her brain went into over-drive thinking of ways to get out of the situation.
“When the accident happened, I fully accepted the fact that I was going to lose my foot and I had accepted that and I said to my friends it’s fine I’ve lost my foot I’m still alive,” she said.
However, Amelie said when the doctors told her that her foot was going to be fine and that she was going to be able to walk again it was “such a relief”.
The teen thanked her grandmother for being with her at the hospital and sleeping next to her bed.
“I don’t know if any other grandparents would sleep on the floor of a hospital on a fold-out chair, so I’m very grateful,” said Amelie.
Her grandmother, who was also featured in the video, said she was grateful that the hospital allowed her to stay with her granddaughter.
“She had these continuous flashbacks and terrible dreams and so on at night but now it’s better. The first two or three days were bad,” said the grandmother.
Amelie’s advice to other young people who would like to travel and experience different places is not to let one bad incident, like the one she experienced, hold them back.
“Don’t let an incident like this put you off because it doesn’t happen often. I was very lucky but I think, especially now, I’ve just seen that your life can be over so quickly. Do it all while you can and don’t let one incident hold you back,” Amelie said.
She said she would visit Zambia again.
THE MERCURY