While canoeing in Zambia, a guy was attacked by a hippo and was dragged to the bottom of a river and "thrown through the air like a rag doll." He barely made it out of the ordeal.

During a five-week vacation in southern Africa with his spouse Shirley, Roland Cherry suffered terrible bite wounds all over his body, including a 10-inch wound to his abdomen. He also suffered a thigh injury and a dislocated shoulder.

The 63-year-old was then rushed to a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, for treatment, and the nurses there said they had never encountered a survivor of a hippos assault because most of them were fatal.

"Yes, that is what I recall thinking—'Oh no, what a way to go. He told the BBC, "I'm not ready to die, and I thought this was it, because nobody survives hippo attacks." "I recall thinking, 'That's not good,' as I looked down at my legs. Bits of flesh were protruding from my torn shorts, and blood over my abdomen.”

He said had held no ill-will towards the animal as he was “conscious we were in their territory” but he was not “not very fond” of what the hippo did to him.

The couple from Warwickshire were on a group guided safari along the Kafue River on 25 June, the third week of their trip, when their canoe was struck by a hippo from underneath and lifted out of the water.

Shirley, who was in the front of the canoe, managed to swim to the riverbank but Cherry dislocated his shoulder as the canoe capsized and was unable to swim.

“The instructions were to swim to safety but I couldn’t swim so 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.

Cherry said the hippo “grabbed me in its jaws and took me under to the bottom of the river”, and although he could not recall seeing the hippo, he thought his “time was up”.

The hippo released Cherry at the bottom of the river and his lifejacket lifted him back to the surface, where he took a “big gulp of air” before the hippo came for him again.

“I was grabbed again and thrown through the air like a rag doll but towards the bank, which was the godsend,” he said. It was there that he was able to “bum-shuffle” to safety and a motorboat transported him away from the river.

Cherry was due to be taken away immediately by air ambulance but when it did not arrive, he was instead taken to Mtendere Mission general hospital in the nearby village of Chirundu, and credits the staff there with saving his life.

“As soon as we arrived, this little African hospital swung into action. Without thinking twice or asking for my insurance details, they assessed the hippo damage and whisked me away into theatre to clean my wounds,” he said.

“If they hadn’t acted so promptly there is a strong likelihood that sepsis would have set in, which could have proved fatal.”

After hours of wrangling with their insurance company, Cherry was later taken to Milpark hospital in Johannesburg, where he underwent six operations.

To show gratitude to the Mtendere Mission hospital, he intends to raise £20,000 to assist with the purchase of medical equipment.

I had time to think and reflect as I healed in my hospital bed. The generosity of strangers was what most surprised him after his near-death encounter, he remarked, adding that he wished to "give something back to the hospital that had probably saved my life."