Wife rescues husband from jaws of 13-foot crocodile by bludgeoning beast with tree stump till it let go
A South African man was trapped, half-swallowed, in the jaws of a crocodile when his wife bravely bashed the monster on the head with a log before it could drown him, according to a report.
Anthony Joubert, 37, was enjoying a fishing trip with his 12-year-old son, JP, when he waded into about an inch of water to untangle some line that had gotten in a tree. Not far away, the crocodile “was lying in ambush,” he said.
“All of a sudden it exploded from the water and had its jaws round my leg and knocked me flat,” the father of three told the Daily Mail.
“There was water everywhere then it adjusted its grip and had my second leg in its mouth just below my belt and started thrashing its head to the left and right with such power,” Joubert said.
He said he was deep enough in the crocodiles’ mouth that he could no longer see his legs. He recalled the nightmare of staring into the beasts’ “evil eyes” as it slowly dragged him into deeper water.
Joubert tried to gouge crocodiles’ eyes but the creature just shook him side to side “like a rag doll,” he told the Daily Mail.
He felt no pain in the moment, which he attributed to adrenaline, and accepted he could lose his limbs in what he called a “tug of war” with the croc.
“I honestly thought my legs were just going to get ripped off,” he revealed to the outlet.
“When you look at the wounds it is incredible that I didn’t lose one or both legs. I will never forget its teeth and how it looked at me.”
He was waiting for the creature to pull him in and drown him in a “death roll.”
Then his wife, Annalize, came sprinting through the water holding a massive log from the nearby dam.
“She began smashing this giant crocodile over the head again and again with terrific force and after five or six huge bashes the crocodile’s jaws opened and it slid away,” Joubert said.
“I grabbed this log with a tree stump on the end of it and rushed out into the water and I just started battering it over the head again and again and screaming at it till it let go,” Annalize said.
“It opened its jaws and Johan pulled back and Anthony came out and I could see the blood and I just grabbed an arm and he had the other one and we pulled him out of the water,” she added.
Joubert, who was seriously injured and bleeding profusely, was dragged to shore by Annalize and his boss, Johan van der Colff. They were terrified the crocodile might come back for the kill.
Va de Colff’s wife, Bianca, immediately wrapped his wounds in towels and bandages she had grabbed from the farmhouse they were staying in over the weekend and stabilized him until he was rushed to a local hospital.
“When I tried to clean his wounds I found three crocodile teeth still in a stomach hole,” Bianca grimly recalled.
When Joubert’s family returned to the hospital the next morning, they said his wounds were still dirty and decided to take him to an expensive private hospital. If he stayed in the public hospital, they believe he would have died.
Joubert suffered four deep wounds on his legs and stomach, as well as a number of single tooth wounds. He’s incredibly thankful the crocodile missed his genitals.
“Two very brave people save my life that day from the most horrific death I can imagine. I have a long fight to get back to health but I was one meal the crocodile was not having,” he told The Daily Mail.
His family has set up a fundraising page on Facebook to help support his recovery.
