2026-11-13 12:02:40
A newlywed was left fighting for his life after being attacked and disembowelled by a hippo just 10 days into his honeymoon in Botswana.
Samuel, who had married his wife Anna in Portugal in September 2025 after 13 years together, was visiting the Okavango Delta the following month when the terrifying incident happened.
The couple had joined a group travelling in traditional canoes and had been warned that a mother hippo with two calves was nearby.
He spotted the animal in the distance and took a photograph before their canoe drifted away from the others, and suddenly, the hippo charged.
He told The Guardian newspaper: “It was like being struck by a car.”
The animal knocked him underwater and pinned him to the bottom of the swamp before clamping its jaws around his leg.
Anna saw her husband in the hippo’s mouth and thought he was dead, but instead of fleeing, she charged towards the animal.
She remembers making a “primal scream” before punching the hippo near its face, causing it to drop her husband.
When he surfaced, he realised the extent of his injuries.
He added: “I felt pain in my back, looked down and saw my intestines hanging out.”
The couple managed to reach another canoe, where he lay on his stomach on a pile of lifejackets, and Anna used his belt as a tourniquet for his leg and a headscarf on his arm.
He asked her to push his intestines back inside him, but she refused and instead held them in her hands.
Their expected helicopter evacuation was delayed until the following morning, leaving the badly injured man fearing he would die.
Just before 8pm, he called his mother and told her: “Mom, I got attacked by a hippo. I’m lying in a tent with my guts out. I’m going to die. I need to be evacuated.”
A helicopter eventually arrived and he was taken to Netcare Milpark Hospital in South Africa, where doctors performed emergency surgery.
His injuries included a hole in his back, deep wounds, fractured ribs and vertebrae, damaged internal organs and crushed intestines.
He spent 19 days in hospital before returning home, while Anna also required treatment for injuries sustained when she punched the hippo.
However, he said: “Neither of us blames the hippo. She was only protecting her territory.”
And they still have a photograph he took before the attack hanging at home.
He added: “It’s probably an unusual souvenir. But then it’s not every day your wife punches a hippo to save your life.”
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