The 1996Zambezi River hippopotamus attack was an incident on the Zambezi River, Zimbabwe, near Victoria Falls on 9 March 1996 where a hippopotamus attacked two river tour guides killing one and injuring the other. The surviving tour guide is [1] Zimbabwean Paul Templer (born c. 1968) who lost an arm in the attack. [2] [3] The tour guide who died by drowning was named Evans Namasango (born c. 1971 [4] ) and was an apprentice guide to Templer. [3] [5]
The attack began when a bull hippopotamus flipped Namasango's kayak with two passengers inside, and Templer rowed over to assist when he was attacked directly by the same hippopotamus. [3] The hippopotamus attempted to swallow Templer, but it was unable to due to his size. [3] The hippopotamus then released him, but it returned to attack him again, gravely injuring Templer. [3] It released Templer again, and another apprentice guide named Mike rescued him and provided first aid. A different guide also attempted to find Namasango, but since it was nighttime he was not found until two days later about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) away from where the hippopotamus flipped his kayak. [1] [3] Namasango reportedly defended French and German tourists using his oar before going missing. [6] [7] Tourists in Namasango's kayak swam through the water before being rescued. [8]
It took approximately eight hours to get Templer to a hospital that could treat his serious injuries. [3] He was transported to a hospital near Bulawayo. [9] His left arm had a degloving injury from the elbow down, his lung was punctured, and his Achilles tendon was torn out. He had a total of 38 serious bite injuries. Templer's left arm was amputated by hospital staff because of its injuries. [3]
Templer has recounted the attack in detail to various news organizations, [2] [3] [5] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] and he wrote about the experience in his partial autobiography, What's Left of Me: How I Lost a Fight with a Rogue Hippo and Won My Life. [14]