Paul Templer was living his best life. He was 28 and conducting tours in his native Zimbabwe, with a focus on photographic safaris. He had been away for a few years, including a stint in the British army. But he had returned to Africa’s bush country “and fell back in love with it. The wildlife, the flora, the fauna, the great outdoors, the space – just everything about it. I was at home.” Templer said Zimbabwe’s guide certification program was rigorous, and there was a lot of pride among the guides who passed. He reveled in showing tourists the area’s majestic wildlife – including the water-loving, very territorial hippos. “It was idyllic,” he told CNN Travel recently. “Life was really, really good – until one day I had a really bad day at the office.”
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A good day for a river trek
March 9, 1996. A Saturday. Templer learned a good friend who was to lead a canoe safari down the Zambezi River had malaria. He agreed to take his pal’s place. “I loved that stretch of the river. It was an area I know like the back of my hand.” The expedition consisted of six safari clients (four Air France crewmembers and a couple from Germany), three apprentice guides plus Templer. They had three canoes – clients in the first two seats and a guide in the back. Then one apprentice guide was in a one-person safety kayak. And down the famed Zambezi they went. “Things were going the way they were supposed to go. Everyone was having a pretty good time.”
Possible trouble ahead
Eventually, they came across a pod of about a dozen hippos. That’s not unexpected on the Zambezi, Africa’s fourth-longest river. They weren’t alarmed at first as they were at a safe distance. But “we were getting closer, and I was trying to take evasive action. … The idea was let’s just paddle safely around the hippos.” Templer’s canoe led the way, with the other two canoes and kayak to follow. He pulled into a little channel waiting on the others. But the third canoe had fallen back from the group and was off the planned course. Templer’s not sure how that happened.
Suddenly, there’s this big thud. And I see the canoe, like the back of it, catapulted up into the air.
Paul Templer
“Suddenly, there’s this big thud. And I see the canoe, like the back of it, catapulted up into the air. And Evans, the guide in the back of the canoe, catapulted out of the canoe.” The clients managed to remain in the canoe somehow. “Evans is in the water, and the current is washing Evans toward a mama hippo and her calf 150 meters [490 feet] away. … So I know I’ve got to get him out quickly. I don’t have time to drop my clients off.” He yells to Ben, one of the other guides, to retrieve the clients who were in the canoe that had been attacked. Ben got the clients to safety on a rock in the middle of the river that hippos couldn’t climb.
Attempting a rescue
Meanwhile, Templer turned his canoe around to get Evans. The plan was to pull alongside him and pull him into Templer’s canoe. “I was paddling towards him … getting closer, and I saw this bow wave coming towards me. If you’ve ever seen any of those old movies with a torpedo coming toward a ship, it was kind of like that. I knew it was either a hippo or a really large crocodile coming at me,” he said. “But I also knew that if I slapped the blade of my paddle on water … that’s really loud. And the percussion underwater seems to turn the animals away,” he said. “So I slapped the water, and as it was supposed to do, the torpedo wave stops.” He was getting closer to Evans, but they were also getting closer to the female and calf. “I’m leaning over – it’s kind of a made-for-Hollywood movie – Evans is reaching up. … Our fingers almost touched. And then the water between us just erupted. Happened so fast I didn’t see a thing.”
What happened next was nightmarish and surreal.
“My world went dark and strangely quiet,” Templer said it took a few seconds to figure out what was going on. “From the waist down, I could feel the water. I could feel I was wet in the river. From my waist up, it was different. I was warm, and it wasn’t wet like the river, but it wasn’t dry either. And it was just incredible pressure on my lower back. I tried to move around; I couldn’t. “I realized I was up to my waist down a hippo’s throat.”
Hippos: Huge, territorial, and dangerous
There’s a good reason a fully-grown hippopotamus can fit a large portion of a fully-grown adult in its mouth. Hippos can grow up to 16.5 feet long (5 meters), 5.2 feet tall (1.6 meters), and weigh up to 4.5 tons (4 metric tonnes), according to National Geographic. They sport enormous mouths and can open their strong jaws to 150 degrees. Their teeth might be the most frightening thing of all. Their molars are used for eating plants, but their sharp canines, which might reach 20 inches (51 centimeters), are for defense and fighting. Their bite is almost three times stronger than that of a lion. One bite from a hippo can possibly cut a human body in half. They’re found naturally in various parts of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in East and Southern Africa, living in or near rivers and other water sources. (And they are an invasive species in Colombia thanks to escapees from drug lord Pablo Escobar’s menagerie). Hippos are very territorial and might aggressively attack any animal encroaching on their territory, including hyenas, lions, and crocodiles.
They also kill people. That we know for sure. Many internet sources say around 500 a year, but an exact figure is still uncertain because some attacks and deaths come in very remote regions and don’t get reported. “The question I get asked the most when people find out I study hippos is: ‘Is it true hippos kill more people than any animal?’ Rebecca Lewison, a conservation ecologist and associate professor at San Diego State University, told CNN Travel in an email interview.
“I’m not entirely sure where that started but … there is no authority or reliable data. People are surprised that hippos kill people. They look slow, and they are mostly in water. There are some nonfatal interactions, but people (or hippos) tend to fare badly from interactions.” Dr. Philip Muruthi, chief scientist and vice president of species conservation and science of the African Wildlife Fund, said the AWF doesn’t have a credible source on the number of attacks or fatalities either. While more stats need to be collected, one study found that the probability of being killed by a hippopotamus attack is in the range of 29% to 87% – higher than that of a grizzly bear attack at 4.8%, shark attack at 22.7% and crocodile attack at 25%.
‘He spat me out’
Those were rather bad odds of survival working against Templer. “I’m guessing I was wedged so far down its throat it must have been uncomfortable because he spat me out. So I burst to the surface, sucked a lungful of fresh air and I came face to face with Evans, the guide who I was trying to rescue. And I said, ‘We got to get out of here!’ ”
So once again, I’m up to my waist down the hippo’s throat. But this time, my legs are trapped but my hands are free.
Paul Templer
But Evans was in serious trouble. Templer started swimming back for him “and I was just moving in for your classic lifesaver’s hold when – WHAM! – I got hit from below. So once again, I’m up to my waist down the hippo’s throat. But this time my legs are trapped but my hands are free.” He tried to go for his gun, but he was being thrashed around so much he couldn’t grab it. The hippo – which turned out to be an older, aggressive male – spat Templer out a second time. “This time when I come to the surface I look around, and there’s no sign of Evans.” Templer assumed Evans had been rescued, and he tried to escape himself. “I’m making pretty good progress and I’m swimming along there and I come up for the stroke and swimming freestyle and I look under my arm – and until my dying day I’ll remember this – there’s this hippo charging in towards me with his mouth wide open bearing in before he scores a direct hit.” This time, Templer was sideways in the hippo’s mouth, legs dangling out one side of the mouth, shoulders and head on the other side of its mouth.
Who gets attacked and why
People living near hippo territory are more likely victims of attacks than tourists, said Lewison. “Most of the attacks happen in the water, but because hippos raid crops on farms, there are also attacks on people trying to protect their crops. There are some tourists, but largely the attacks are happening to local residents,” Lewison said. Human encroachment from Africa’s booming population makes matters worse, increasing the chances of deadly interactions, she said. Despite the encounters gone bad, sub-Saharan Africa depends on hippos.
“Hippos are important ecosystem engineers of the ecology of freshwater areas they inhabit. This is through nutrient recycling from dung (they consume large amounts of vegetation),” Muruthi said. “Hippos attack not to eat people, but to get them the hell away from them,” Lewison said. “I don’t think hippos are particularly aggressive, but I think when under pressure, they attack.”
Stuck on a rock and in a hard place
Back on the rock in the Zambezi, Templer asked Mack where Evans was. Mack said, “He’s gone, man, he’s just gone.” Templer knew he needed to come up with a plan to get them off the rock and to the riverbank, but “first I needed to settle myself down.” He assessed the situation: One man missing. The first aid kit, radio, and gun are all gone. Six scared clients, two canoes, and one paddle left. And his own body was shattered. “My left foot was especially bad; it looked as if someone had tried to beat a hole through it with a hammer.” He couldn’t move his arms. One arm from the elbow down was “crushed to a pulp.”
Blood was bubbling out of his mouth. They realized his lung was punctured. Mack rolled Templer over and could see a gaping hole in his back and plugged it with Saran Wrap from a plate of snacks. Templer made the call: No matter the risk, they had to get off that rock. He was loaded into a canoe. Ben paddled. The hippo kept bumping the canoe. He went from being terrified to calm on that ride back.
He described “a profound spiritual experience in which I had this incredible sense of peace and realization this was my moment of choice. Like do I go, or do I stay? Do I close my eyes and drift off, or do I fight my way through this and stick around?”
It was so intense I thought I was going to die, and when I didn’t, I kind of wished I would.
Paul Templer on the pain after the attack
“I chose to stick around, and as soon as I made that choice, it was more pain than I could ever imagine I could endure. It was so intense I thought I was going to die, and when I didn’t, I kind of wished I would.” Ben and Templer made it out of the river, but without finding Evans. His body was found three days later. They concluded he had drowned because he didn’t have any signs of animal attack on him. “Evans did nothing wrong. The fact that he died was purely a tragedy.” Meanwhile, some people on shore realized something was wrong in the river. A well-trained Zimbabwe rescue team was able to safely ferry everyone else off the rock. “And that was my bad day at the office.”
Next ordeal: Getting medical help
Templer was out of the river but not out of the woods. It took eight hours to drive him to the nearest hospital. In a month’s time, he had several major surgeries. He thought he would lose one leg and both arms. His surgeon didn’t think he’d live. But not only did the surgeon save Templer’s life, but he also saved his legs and one arm. The other arm, however, was beyond salvation. He realized that in the ICU when he woke up and was feeling for his left hand. It was gone. “I just remember feeling devastated. I spent my whole life being active and it was almost more than I could bear.” But then he was flooded with relief to realize his right arm and legs had been saved. For the next month, he was “emotionally all over the map.” He got physical and occupational therapy in Zimbabwe and then more in the United Kingdom. He got a prosthesis “and then just started trying to get back to life.”
How to stay safe in hippo country
Templer, Muruthi, and Lewison all say safe outings start with education – and avoiding trouble in the first place. “Hippos have no interest in dealing with people. Stay away from them, and they will leave you alone. They are not hunting humans,” Lewison said. “Do not get close to them,” Muruthi said. “They don’t want any intrusion. … They’re not predators; it’s by accident if they’re injuring people.” Want close-up views and photos of the creatures? Instead of venturing too close, invest in good binoculars and telephoto camera lenses.
Follow the rules. If you are a tourist, and it says ‘Stay in your vehicle,’ then stay in your vehicle.
Philip Muruthi on avoiding hippo attacks
Do not walk along well-worn hippo paths, stay close to your group and don’t approach them from behind, Muruthi said. “Follow the rules. If you are a tourist, and it says ‘Stay in your vehicle,’ then stay in your vehicle. And even when you’re in your vehicle, don’t drive it right to the animal.” Muruthi also advised that your party make some noise in areas known for hippos. “It’s good for them to know you’re around.”Hippos usually come out of the water late in the evening and at night to forage, so avoid trekking along the river at that time,” Muruthi said. Also, stay on high alert during the dry season when food is scarce.
