A TEENAGER on her gap year has described how she was attacked by a crocodile that dragged her under water. Amelie Osborne-Smith’s friend clung on to her life jacket as she fought off the 10ft beast by kicking it after it went for them a river in Africa. The 18-year-old has been plagued by nightmares […]
A TEENAGER on her gap year has described how she was attacked by a crocodile that dragged her under water.
Amelie Osborne-Smith’s friend clung on to her life jacket as she fought off the 10ft beast by kicking it after it went for them a river in Africa.
The 18-year-old has been plagued by nightmares and flashbacks after the 10ft croc attacked her,
She was dragged into a death roll while she was on a white water rafting expedition in near the famous Victoria Falls in Zambia.
Amelie, from Hampshire, explained she was swimming back her raft when she felt something go over her legs she initially thought was her friend.
But she told Sky News: “I turned to look and I realised my friend was in line with my head instead of my legs, and that’s when I looked down and saw the crocodile.”
The animal then went underneath her and round “to measure the size of me” but then dragged her underwater.
She couldn’t breathe but her friend clung on to the shoulders of her lifejacket as she kicked the animal.
“You just think how do I get out? How do we escape this? At that point, I was just so ridiculously grateful that my friend was in the water,” she said.
“You don’t really think in that situation.”
After the crocodile swam away, Amelie waited 45 minutes with no pain relief for a helicopter rescue.
Her friend held her hand and said “don’t look down at your legs” but she replied “it’s okay, tell them to amputate both my legs”.
“I nearly lost my life, losing my legs compared to that is nothing,” she said.
Speaking to The Sun from her hospital bed after December’s attack, Amelie said she went into “overdrive” to stay alive.
“People say you see your life flash before your eyes, but you don’t. You just think, ‘How do I get out of this situation’,” she said.
“Your mind just goes into overdrive and you just think about how to get out.”
Amelie was on a white water rafting adventure as part of a gap year visit to Zambia where her grandmother owns a farm.
She insisted she had no regrets and vowed to return to the southern African country once she has made a full recovery.
“I have seen that your life can be over so quickly,” she added.
“If you live thinking you’re going to regret everything you’re never going to have a fulfilled life.
“I always think, ‘Don’t let one incident hold you back’.”
Amelie is planning to go back to Zambia and help build a school for the locals she met.
