British man nearly killed after hippo dragged him to bottom of river in Zambia

Roland Cherry says small local hospital saved his life after he was attacked twice and tossed through air ‘like rag doll’

Shirley and Roland Cherry were on a dream holiday when the hippo attacked their canoe (Emma Trimble / SWNS)

A British businessman was nearly killed when he was attacked by a hippo in Zambia and dragged to the bottom of a river.

Roland Cherry, from Warwickshire, said the animal “chewed his flesh” and he was badly injured when it threw him through the air “like a rag doll”.

The 63-year-old says a local hospital saved his life, and he is now fundraising for it.

A surgeon who treated him in South Africa said he had never met anybody who had survived a hippo attack before, Mr Cherry said.

Hippos live in rivers in southern Africa (Getty Images)

Mr Cherry and his wife Shirley were on the Kafue River, during a dream trip to Africa in June, when the hippo smashed into their canoe, tossing the couple into the water.

The impact dislocated Mr Cherry’s shoulder, leaving him unable to swim to safety, but his wife managed to escape.

He told the BBC: “I was really a sitting duck, trying to swim with one arm which was never going to end well – and then it grabbed me.”

He said the hippo snatched him and kept him in its jaws before dragging him to the bottom of the river.

“I remember thinking ‘oh no, what a way to go... I’m not ready to die’ and I thought this was it, because nobody survives hippo attacks.”

He suffered severe bite wounds across his body, including a 10-inch wound to his abdomen, as well as a thigh and leg injury.

He said he did not hate hippos since he was “conscious we were in their territory” while in the water, but he was “not very fond of what [one] did to me”.

The couple were canoeing in the Kafue River (Getty Images)

The hippo released Mr Cherry underwater, and his lifejacket lifted him back to the surface, where he took a “big gulp of air”.

“I was grabbed again and thrown through the air like a rag doll but towards the bank, which was the godsend,” Mr Cherry said.

“The rest of the group raised the alarm, a motorboat came to my aid and I was pulled onto it,” he wrote on his fundraising page.

“I was badly mauled with severe bite wounds to both my legs and my left side, my left upper arm and a dislocated right shoulder. I was in a very bad way.”

“I looked down at my thigh, which was very badly chewed up, and I could see flesh sticking out from my shorts, and I could see the blood on my left side as well,” Mr Cherry told Sky News.

“The abdomen wound... I wasn’t really aware of it at the time because it was all covered up by the life vest. So it was really after that, I became aware of how badly injured I was.”

Mr Cherry, who has since undergone seven operations, set a target of raising £20,000 for the Mtendere Mission Hospital in Zambia, a small hospital which he says “undoubtedly” saved his life.