Diver fights off croc - South Africa

[DandyDon]

Now has a tooth as keepsake...

iafrica.com Pretoria diver survives croc attack

A diver survived a crocodile attack at a Rust de Winter Dam north-east of Pretoria and discovered that his attacker had left him with a keepsake.

Jody Saunders discovered that he still had a tooth from the crocodile lodged in his head a week after the attack.

The Pretoria News reported that Saunders had been attacked at the dam while doing maintenance work there. The diver says that he was nearing the end of his shift when he was asked to take one last measurement by his colleague.

Saunders said that as he was finishing up his task, he felt an enormous pressure around his head and then everything started going dark. The diver said that he realised his head was in the jaws of a crocodile. He said that he reached into the jaws and struggled with the crocodile until it released him.

Saunders suffered relatively minor injuries in the attack, hurting three fingers and needing stitches in his head. He was also given a brace to wear around his neck.

The diver said that he discovered the tooth stuck in his head after seeing a doctor after feeling some irritation on his head.

"There was a bit of irritation on my head and I went to the doctor to have it checked out. He then told me that half of one of the crocodile’s teeth was stuck in my head. It was removed and they gave it to me. I am going to turn it into a necklace," Pretoria News quoted Saunders as saying.

The crocodile has not been seen at the dam since the attack.

 

[Learn It]

straight survival mode

 

[jake11]

Oh my goodness!!!!!! Unreal!

 

[Abdullah]

Strange that the ER docs that stitched him up the first time didn't notice he had a broken tooth lodged in his head. Seems something like that would look awkward on the x-rays.

 

[AfterDark]

Strange that the ER docs that stitched him up the first time didn't notice he had a broken tooth lodged in his head. Seems something like that would look awkward on the x-rays.

Probably socialized medicine, X-rays cost too much. Wonder how he got it to let go?

 

[Bob DBF]

BFK?



Bob

 

[drbill]

I was snorkeling in a lake in Australia near Darwin and found I was close to a croc. Fortunately it was a strictly freshwater species and not a real threat, but I've seen those salt water crocs in action swimming upstream in rivers. No thank you!

 

[Rayallyn]

I never dove near crocs ( I'll take that back I may have while in Vietnam but I never saw them) I did however hunt them with a baseball bat. While visiting an Aussy I met in Nam while on R&R I was surprised on evening when given a pair of waders, a head lamp and baseball bat. I ask what there were for and only told, " Come on mate we're go'in to have some fun. when we arrived at the river I dawned the waders and put on the head lamp took the bat waded out into the river. I watched as my friend struck between these two yellow eyes and pulled a croc ashore. I was told to strike them in the head right between the eyes. I figured what the heck and started to search for a croc. I saw one and started to wade over to whack it between the eyes and as I was about swing I felt hand on my shoulder and voice saying, " No, no! don't hit it unless there is less than 5 inches between the eyes. That was enough croc hunting for me.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Probably socialized medicine, X-rays cost too much. Wonder how he got it to let go?

Different parts of the world have different outlooks on X-rays than we do in the USA. We will use X-rays and CAT scans for relatively minor things. I took a Ionizing Radiation Safety course through Tulane University, and our professor was a physician specializing in this field. He was in Washington DC when he taught our class (we were doing this class as a distance learning class). Anyway, he said that he had some rather startling information for us. Each year in the USA, we receive the equivalent of about half the dose of the Chernobyl disaster to all of Europe via CT Scans and X-rays. We use these tools way too much, and the resulting radiation exposure is potentially more hazardous than the value of the scans or X-ray photos themselves. For instance, one gal had an accident in Great Briton, whereby she had a fractured arm (I think). She was asked whether she had received an X-ray within the last year, and she replied in the affirmative. The physician then refused to use the X-ray to help diagnose her break--he apparently did it by palpation. So it is not necessarily incompetency, or socialized medicine, but rather a concern for the known hazards of ionizing radiation (a set of diseases known as cancer) that may have led this physician not to use an X-ray.

SeaRat

 

[Abdullah]

Different parts of the world have different outlooks on X-rays than we do in the USA. We will use X-rays and CAT scans for relatively minor things. I took a Ionizing Radiation Safety course through Tulane University, and our professor was a physician specializing in this field. He was in Washington DC when he taught our class (we were doing this class as a distance learning class). Anyway, he said that he had some rather startling information for us. Each year in the USA, we receive the equivalent of about half the dose of the Chernobyl disaster to all of Europe via CT Scans and X-rays. We use these tools way too much, and the resulting radiation exposure is potentially more hazardous than the value of the scans or X-ray photos themselves. For instance, one gal had an accident in Great Briton, whereby she had a fractured arm (I think). She was asked whether she had received an X-ray within the last year, and she replied in the affirmative. The physician then refused to use the X-ray to help diagnose her break--he apparently did it by palpation. So it is not necessarily incompetency, or socialized medicine, but rather a concern for the known hazards of ionizing radiation (a set of diseases known as cancer) that may have led this physician not to use an X-ray.

SeaRat

I guess debriding the wound would have been over and above as well. The fact that the second doctor found it and the first didn't would be good reason not to go back to the first guy.