‘Yeah, I survived’: Australian tour guide attacked by seven-foot jumping crocodile

Laura Sharman @LauraSharman_29 September 2021

A wildlife tour operator in Australia says he is lucky to be alive after a crocodile lunged from a river and chomped his hand.

Sean Dearly, 60, was attacked on Monday on the Adelaide River, near Darwin, which is renowned for its jumping crocodiles.

The crocs are known to rise vertically from the water to snatch chicken carcasses dangled on long poles from tourist cruise boats.

Mr Dearly was cruising along the water with 18 tourists when he was bitten by the 7ft croc in an incident which almost cost him his hand.

“I’ve lifted a crocodile up and I’ve gone ‘my God what have I got here?’” he told Nine Network television.

“And I’m thinking ‘what are we going to do about this? It’s hanging off my arm.”’

Mr Dearly had told holidaymakers onboard his cruise on Monday to keep their entire bodies inside the boat at all times for safety.

He then did the opposite when he decided to retrieve a pole he had dropped overboard after using it to feed meat to the crocodiles.

Sean Dearly crocodile attack Australia
Sean Dearly suffered a severed tendon in his hand
AP

“Its my own fault. I just did something that was probably complacency,” he told 9News.

“You learn by your lessons of course and I won’t be doing it again.”

He said “immediately something lunged” towards him as he went to grab the pole.

Then as he drew back, the crocodile remained clamped on to his arm.

Mr Dearly said he hoped the crocodile would not twist its body, which could have caused more serious tearing wounds and potentially dragged him overboard.

“If it had gone into a twist, it would have given me a bit of grief,” he added.

“It went for another bite and it actually released its grip and I just got my arm out as soon as it released.

So I was pretty lucky it dropped back down in the water.”

An ambulance was called to the scene but Mr Dearly had already left in a car to make the hour-long journey to the nearest hospital at Palmerston, near Darwin.

He underwent surgery to repair a severed tendon in his hand and now has his right hand and forearm are in a cast, according to the Northern Territory News.

“I’m feeling all right. I’m a bit sore in the arm, of course, but, yeah, I survived it,” he told Nine Network television.

The tour guide expressed his relief that he was not attacked by “one of our bigger crocodiles” known as Brutus and the Dominator which measure 18ft and 20ft long respectively.

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