Teenager escapes from crocodile death roll in Zambia

Eighteen-year-old, Amelie Osborn-Smith, from Andover, Hampshire, who was whitewater rafting on the Zambezi river in Zambia when a crocodile clamped on to her leg and tried to drag her under the water on last Tuesday.

The teenager said her brain went into “overdrive, and people say that you see your life flash before your eyes, but you don’t, you just think: How do I get out this situation. Your brain goes to overdrive. I was just very, very lucky. It sounds cliched, but If you’re going to live thinking you’re going to regret everything. You’re never going to have a fulfilled life”.  Although she is stable but suffering from frequent flashbacks and nightmares and is being repatriated to the trauma unit of a London teaching hospital.

Her father Brent Osborn-Smith earlier said his daughter, along with her friends, managed to fight off the crocodile after it “attempted to drag her down into a characteristic death roll”

Luckily the cost of her flight back to the UK and the medical treatment is being met by her insurance company.

Bundu Rafting, the company that organised the whitewater rafting trip, said  “ what happened to Ms Osborn-Smith is an unfortunate accident – the first of its kind to occur with Bundu Rafting. Our top priority is Ms Osborn-Smith’s speedy recovery.

 

Quick thinking and intervention by all those on board virtually save her life.