A Mpumalanga man is being hailed as a ”Crocodile Dundee” after surviving a four-hour battle with a huge crocodile at the weekend, News24 reported on Tuesday.
Alex Masinga (58) of KaMhlushwa in Nkomazi said he first defended himself against the 2,7m female by wrestling with it.
Finally, he plunged his arm down the reptile’s throat and drove his new panga into her vital organs.
Fellow-villagers initially refused to believe Masinga’s story, but doubt turned to hero worship when he took them to the corpse.
Masinga spent much of Monday posing with the crocodile for local photographers, showing off his gnawed calf where she bit him on a tributary of the Umlati River.
”I was farming my vegetable patch on Sunday, and it was very hot. The stream was right there, so I grabbed my panga and water bottle to collect some water,” said Masinga.
He was ankle-deep when the crocodile latched on to his calf from behind and started dragging him into the water.
”I fought fiercely … but the crocodile was too strong. The water was up to my chest and I told myself the only way to survive was to use my new panga,” he said.
Masinga said he shoved his panga down the crocodile’s throat and started twisting it.
”Once that panga was in there I kept on twisting and twisting until the crocodile started to float and I knew I had survived,” he said.
Conservation officials found no panga inside the reptile, and doubted Masinga’s story.
They suspected he was a poacher who deliberately trapped and killed the crocodile, the website reported. – Sapa